The Obituary
The 35mm slide projector turned photographic transparencies into the centrepiece of the postwar living room and classroom. Kodak’s Carousel, introduced in 1961, fed slides from a rotating top-mounted tray of 80, each dropping into the light gate with a clunk and throwing the image large onto a wall or screen. Mounting, ordering, and storing slides was a craft, and the misloaded upside-down frame was a running joke. Digital cameras and software slideshows, then digital projectors, made the whole apparatus unnecessary, and Kodak stopped making slide projectors in 2004.
Worth remembering
- The rotating Carousel tray held 80 slides and advanced with a satisfying mechanical clunk.
- An upside-down or out-of-order slide was a fixture of the family slideshow.
Sources
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.