Re: Old Spectros (WAS: X-Rite DTP20/Pulse)
Re: Old Spectros (WAS: X-Rite DTP20/Pulse)
- Subject: Re: Old Spectros (WAS: X-Rite DTP20/Pulse)
- From: Terry Wyse <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:24:19 -0500
OK, I wasn't going to flex my "who's got the oldest spectro" muscles
but here goes:
I used to own a 1921 Sears & Roebuck gas-fired spectrophotometer with
gas lamp (not gas-FILLED lamp, an actual GAS lamp). The measurement
geometry was ahead of it's time as the angle was infinitely variable,
depending on what angle your hired hand held the gas lamp (ISO
Illuminant DIM) relative to the hand-coated and filtered photo-
sensitive glass plates. Measurement was not "speedy" as each glass
plate and filter (10 of them at 30nm bandwidths) had to be manually
put in place for each patch measurement. Portability was quite good
as it came with it's own carriage (not carriage ASSEMBLY but an
actual CARRIAGE). You had to, of course, provide your own horses to
transport the unit. The 1921 unit was actually an improvement over
the previous generation's coal-fired power unit and oxen-pulled
carriage. The amazing thing is that the Sears spectros pre-dated the
CIE by, what, 10 years or so?
I wish I could provide photographs of the unit but, alas, the gas
power plant exploded while attempting to measure an ECI2002 target
that measured 1/10th of an acre. Once the gas power plant exploded,
it so frightened the horses that they shot off, dragging and
eventually drowning the unit in a local river.
Apparently, Sears was so afraid of the liability issues associated
with the Craftsman Portable External Combustion Spectophotometer that
they eventually got out of the color management business altogether
and stuck to tools, tires and lead-acid batteries. Some say this
attempt at "spectrophometry for the masses" was decades later
responsible for the killing of the Sears and Roebuck Catalog but I'm
not sure, I think it was the internet. In a bit of an irony, Al Gore
Jr. claimed to have invented the visible spectrum, pre-dating his
inventing of the internet by several decades (at least).
Later,
Terry Wyse
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