SmartMedia Card

SmartMedia was a flash card used in early digital cameras and a few other gadgets, and it was so thin it felt futuristic right up until you nearly lost it in the couch.

It helped shove photography from film toward digital by giving cameras compact removable storage during the era when memory-card formats were all busy throwing elbows at each other.

SD cards turned out easier to handle, sturdier, and much better positioned to become the mainstream standard.

SmartMedia hangs around in memory as one of those transitional formats that reminds you early digital photography was basically a cage match of tiny plastic rectangles.