Posted 2022-12-24 | Back to blog index
Christmas present to myself (ok... late night Mercari impulse buy I'm trying to justify)....
MVC-FD81! A Sony Mavica! The floppy camera!
Sold as untested and missing a charger, I bought a battery+charger set on Amazon (NP-F550 compatible batteries are still in common use for modern generic video lights) and it works perfectly! The original battery also seems to be in great shape!
Battery DRM is super lame!
I have 5 batteries that are nominally NP-F550 compatible
1) Is the one that came with the camera. It is presumably 24 years old
2) Is a directly USB-C rechargeable battery I use for a modern video light. It's a few mm too thick to fit in the Sony.
3) Came with the video light I use 2 in, but I lost the charger for it. It fits perfectly in the Mavica, but shows the error in the picture
4+5) Came with the charger I got to replace the lost charger in 3. (cont'd)
They don't have the DRM problem, but are a fraction of a mm too thick - they go in, but to get them out I have to slap the camera in the palm of my hand :/
Luckily it seems the 24-year old original battery actually seems to be in really good shape, after a full charge I took a lot of videos and photos with it and it hasn't shut down yet!
Box of floppies arrived (my only other box of floppies came Macintosh-formatted and I didn't want to desecrate any more of them with FAT)!
This box art is so gorgeous that I really didn't want to open it. Tried to Steve1989 it so I could rewrap it afterwards 😅
