In the mid '80s there was a person who posted in the digital photography section of Compuserve who said that he was their lead and only digital photography engineer. He said at that time that the concept was something Kodak didn't want to do since it threatened their silver film business.
Almost at the same time I read about a consumer prototype being built out of a new chip by a company called Dycam. After some finagling I got engineering prototype #2 (still have it). Dycam was eventually bought by Logitech. It could take two or three black and white images, about 340x280 pixels, and didn't do all that badly. My idea back then was to take pictures of properties we had for sale and post them on what was then the leading graphic online service, Prodigy. However, neither the liquidations folks nor Prodigy liked the idea (Prodigy thought 4 colors was sufficient for everyone), and there weren't enough cameras to equip hundreds of staff anyway, nor any quick means to transmit and put the stuff together. Nor would it probably have reached enough bidders. Five years later the web started.

Not entirely Maryland land: the boundaries which anyone can see are a square encompassing originally Arlington and Alexandria. You can still see the boundary markers in Alexandria near the train station.