<p>Just for the eternal web record, I actually spoke about —or, more like, <em>pushed—</em> this idea with Rollei around ten years ago at Photokina while speaking with their marketing manager at the time, a Mr. Dieter Kanzer (if memory serves right for his name). He intimated to me that Rollei had already considered this —and I suspect I wasn't the first to think of it, even way back then!<br>
I don't exactly remember what the reason was, as to why they didn't actually pursue the idea (probably the same ol' reason of believing that there wasn't a big enough market for the product), but I do remember him saying that they'd already invested too much, at that point, in the Sinar-Rollei Hy6 project, to justify changing horses in mid stream.<br>
With all the zillions of sturdy and sharp second-hand Rolleiflex's still out there, it would've seemed logical to have tried to create a secondary —or, <em>"second life"</em>— market based upon the well built cameras they'd already sold. After all, one of Rollei/F&H's major "problems" was that their product was practically indestructible and —unlike an Apple iThing, where "next generation" could simply involve just a software change— a Rolleiflex product evolution was —or, to the customer, could seem to be— a relative minor thing (except for differences in lenses). Customers rarely needed to replace them. <br>
I'm still convinced that if Rollei or DHW had decided to pursue and develop the idea of a digital back for their TLRs, they might've been able to add some appreciable years to their existence, or at least been able to transform and evolve toward a slightly different core business and remain alive. It's really sad.</p>
