PXL2000

The PXL2000, or Pixelvision, was a toy black and white video camera, introduced by Fisher-Price in 1987 at the International Toy Fair in Manhattan, which could record sound and images onto Compact Cassette tapes. It was on the market for one year with about 400,000 units produced. After that one year, it was pulled from the market, but rediscovered in the 1990s by low-budget filmmakers who appreciated the grainy, shimmering, monochrome produced by the unit, and the way in which its lens allowed the user to photograph a subject an eighth of an inch away from the camera, and pull back to a long shot without manipulating a dial, while keeping as the background and the foreground in focus. It is also appreciated by collectors, artists, and media historians, and has been used in major films and spawned dedicated film festivals.

Development

The PXL2000 was created by a team of inventors led by James Wickstead. He sold the invention rights to Fisher-Price in 1987 at the American International Toy Fair in Manhattan.

Design

The PXL2000 consists of a simple aspherical lens, an infrared filter, a CCD image sensor, a custom ASIC (the Sanyo LA 7306M), and an audio cassette mechanism. This is mounted in a plastic housing with a battery compartment and an RF video modulator selectable to either North American television channel 3 or 4. It has a plastic viewfinder and some control buttons.