From the New York Times:
Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer who invented the first digital camera at Eastman Kodak in the 1970s, remembers well management’s dismay at his feat.
“My prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it,” Mr. Sasson said. “But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute – but don’t tell anyone about it.'”
Since then, of course, Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it.