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: "Robert Rock" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:46:14 -0500
- Organization: P. Chan & Edward, Inc.
VERY entertaining. Perhaps you should dump the consulting business and seek
a writing career?
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: colorsync-users-bounces+bobrock=email@hidden
[mailto:colorsync-users-bounces+bobrock=email@hidden] On
Behalf Of Terry Wyse
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 2:24 PM
To: ColorSync User List List
Subject: Re: Old Spectros (WAS: X-Rite DTP20/Pulse)
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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