The Minolta Dynax 7000i in 1988. As always with technical innovations. It's the first generation that shows the way, but it's the second generation that perfects it. The 7000i has an autofocus system that's way better than that of the 7000. The 7000i uses 3 autofocus sensors, one horizontal in the middle and two vertical besides the centre sensor. This makes the AF more reliable. But also AF is a lot faster than that of the 7000, which makes the 'i' more usable.
Besides the better AF, Minolta introduced a few 'innovations' which are rather doubtful in my honest opinion. First of all they introduced the so called 'artists entrance'. With the introduction of separate chipcards one could alter the custom settings of the camera (which is still quite useful), or one could set the camera to all kinds of standard settings like 'portrait' or 'landscape'
