Iomega Labs ZipCam (1999)

I guess the older generation still remembers the very popular backup ZIP drives from Iomega Labs with their ZIP discs. Well I guess Iomega thought it would be neat to incorporate their technology into a digital camera and actually showed a prototype at Comdex Fall 1999. With 8x digital zoom and 4x optical zoom and a 2 megapixel sensor it could shoot 200 images onto a 100MB zip disk. It could store audio files as well as shoot images at a speed of 1 image per second. The camera itself appeared bulky but given the size of the disk and the fact that LCD screens weren't that thin back then it was quite compact.

At the MacWorld Expo 2000 Iomega Labs even showed an improved version of their '99 Comdex prototype. This one had 3x optical zoom and a smaller lens. Although there were approx. 30,000,000 zip drives in use worldwide and with costs of a mere $10 per disk the camera had a good chance of becoming a bestseller. For unknown reasons the camera was never realized..