ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer who invented the first digital camera at Eastman Kodak in the 1970s, remembers well management’s dismay at his feat.

“My prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it,” Sasson said. “But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’”

Since then, of course, Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it.

“The shift in research focus has been just tremendous,” said John Ward, a lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology who worked for Kodak for 20 years. Or, as Sasson put it, “Getting a digital idea accepted has sure gotten a lot easier.”

Indeed, physicists, electrical engineers and all sorts of people who are more comfortable with binary code than molecules are wending their way up through Kodak’s research labs. “When I joined, I knew my salary came from film sales,” said Dr. Majid Rabbani, an electrical engineer who joined Kodak in 1983. “But I knew that I would eventually produce paychecks for others.”

Kodak is by no means thriving. Digital products are nowhere near filling the profit vacuum left by evaporating sales of film. The company’s work force is about a fifth of the size it was two decades ago, and Kodak continues to lose money. Its share price remains depressed.

But, finally, digital products are flowing from the labs. Kodak recently introduced a pocket-size television, which is selling in Japan for about $285. It has software that lets owners of multiplexes track what is showing on each screen. It has a tiny sensor small enough to fit into a cell phone, yet acute enough to capture images in low light.

The company now has digital techniques that can remove scratches and otherwise enhance old movies. It has found more efficient ways to make OLED’s — organic light-emitting diodes — for displays in cameras, cell phones and, eventually, televisions.

This month, Kodak will introduce Stream, a continuous inkjet printer that can churn out customized items like bill inserts at extremely high speeds. It is working on ways to capture and project three-dimensional movies.

And, of course, it continues to prompt consumers to take pictures with Kodak cameras, store them at Kodak sites online, display them in Kodak digital picture frames and print them on Kodak printers that use Kodak inks and papers.

Paradoxically, many of the new products are based on work Kodak began, but abandoned, years ago. The precursor technology to Stream, for example, pushed ink through a single nozzle. Stream has thousands of holes and uses a method called air deflection to separate drops of ink and control the speed and order in which they are deposited on a page.

Other digital technologies languished as well, said Bill Lloyd, the chief technology officer. “I’ve been here five years, and I’m still learning about all the things they already have,” he said. “It seems Kodak had developed antibodies against anything that might compete with film.”

It took what many analysts say was a near-death experience to change that. Kodak was a film titan in the 20th century but entered the 21st century in danger of being mowed down by the digital juggernaut. Electronics companies like Sony were siphoning away the photography market, while giants like Hewlett-Packard and Xerox had a lock on printers.

“This was a supertanker that came close to capsizing,” said Timothy Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Asset Management, which long ago sold its Kodak shares.

But in 2003 Kodak hired Antonio Perez away from Hewlett-Packard. Perez, now the chief executive, told analysts he had “full confidence” that 2008 would be a good year for Kodak, but investors did not share it. Its shares fell 67 cents on Thursday, to $17.22. After peaking at $94.25 in February 1997, they have steadily trended down this decade.

Analysts remain wary. “The stuff that comes out of the Kodak labs is impressive, but it does not give them a leg up on Hewlett or Xerox,” said Shannon S. Cross, an analyst at Cross Research who rates Kodak a “sell.” Nor is she impressed with Kodak’s consumer printer. “Consumers buy on the cost of hardware, not of total ownership,” she said.