1980s Picture Phone Adapted to Work with Zoom

In the 1980s, videoconferencing as we know it today was nearly unheard of, and certainly not something that you could accomplish by simply pulling out your phone or laptop. However, in 1988, you could by the Mitsubishi VisiTel for just $399 (or about $875 when adjusted for inflation) that would transmit still photos over your phone line. The device features 16 shades of gray, with a 96x96 pixel resolution, allowing you to see the other person, if not exactly in real-time. Notably, you couldn't talk while it’s transmitting images, so it was more like an ancient Snapchat console, than something akin to Zoom or Skype.

While obsolete today, it’s still a fascinating piece of tech. After realizing that it was using some sort of amplitude modulation scheme for image transmission, Alexander Gee went to work reverse engineering this visual telephone display to work with Zoom. Although one might be tempted to disassemble the VisiTel and insert a Raspberry Pi or similar, Gee decided that his was too cool to modify, and instead used the original audio signalling method. Here one wave represents each of the 96x96, or 9,216 pixels, along with a header to let the unit know when a picture is to be transmitted.

With this protocol decoded, he was able to present the device as a webcam. This part of the build was reportedly quite easy using pyfakewebcam under Linux, which could be something to keep in mind for other unique AV projects. Code can be found on Gee's GitHub, and though not his particular setup, check out the videos below for more on this ancient picture phone!