First, the real money for Kodak, Agfa, Fuji, Konica etc. was the amateur market. Kodak had built its business on the “Brownie”. This profit channel was the camera itself and its film. Camera sales fueled the sale of photographic paper and the chemicals of the process. Additionally their existed a worthwhile market for automated developing and printing equipment.

Again, it was the mass market that fueled the bulk of the revenue of the these giants of the industry. The heart of the market was an inexpensive camera. Kodak and others schemed for ways to increase the number of pictures their customers were taking. It was obvious that flash photography provided the means to take pictures indoors. Adding flash capability to the amateur cameras resulted in a huge boost in sales.

The electronic flash of this era was large and bulky and expensive. The flash was triggered by a high voltage charge dumped into a glass tube filled with xenon gas. The problem was, how do you get the needed high voltage from low voltage batteries? The answer is to use a transformer. You input low voltage and the transformer outputs high voltage. But wait, the transformer only works on AC electricity and the battery outputs DC. How to make AC?

The early portable electronic flashes used “B” batteries. The term “B” comes from the radio industry. The “A” batteries were ordinary low voltage batteries. The “B” batteries were heavy duty high voltage batteries and they were big. Portable radios of that era used both. To solve the DC to AC conversion, a vibrator circuit was used. This is a switch that opened and closed rapidly. The vibrator converted the DC to pulsating DC. This rapid off on simulated AC and it worked. The pulsating DC is then transformed to a pulsating high voltage. Next this high voltage needed to be stored, a capacitor is used. This devise allows electricity to be tricked in. The capacitor takes time to fill. The system is “go”. The photographer presses the shutter button; the capacitor dumps its charge into the flash tube. Now you get the wanted blitz.

All this was too much for an inexpensive camera. All these problems were solved with the advent of the transistor and the integrated circuit. Its progress that killed the flash bulb.