Switching off the Trojan Room Coffee Pot camera

Quentin Stafford-Fraser

At 10.54 on Wednesday 22nd August 2001, the first webcam captured its final image.

final picture

The image is difficult to make out, but it shows the fingers of Daniel Gordon, Martyn Johnson and Quentin Stafford-Fraser pressing the power-off switch on the Acorn Archimedes which had captured the images for the preceding 7 years and 9 months. Many thanks to Ian Pratt and the other members of the Trojan Room who worked hard to keep it going long enough to capture the images, as the whole Computer Lab was packed up around them.

We expect this to start a new trend in webcams: online cameras which take images of themselves being finally turned off. Such sites will be much sought-after due to their ephemeral nature...

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