RE: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 405
RE: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 405
- Subject: RE: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 405
- From: "Robert Rock" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 06:04:53 -0500
- Organization: P. Chan & Edward, Inc.
Eric,
This is all likely true, or at least plausible, but I have to take issue
with the "Cosmopolitan" filters. I cannot find any evidence of this drink
being available at the turn of the century. Or perhaps that's yet another
story?
Great stories. I think you and Terry need to contact Bruce Fraser for
inclusion into his next book..."Chapter 1 - How it all Began (or, And Then
There Was Light...").
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: colorsync-users-bounces+bobrock=email@hidden
[mailto:colorsync-users-bounces+bobrock=email@hidden] On
Behalf Of Eric Magnusson
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 3:04 AM
To: email@hidden
Subject: Re: Colorsync-users Digest, Vol 3, Issue 405
Terry,
As you know, I worked for LightSource (who created the ColorTron) and MAN
were we ahead of our time. Great software....and uh, stylish hardware.
But you got me thinking of the past (and rolling on the floor), and I
thought oh, what my great-great-grandfather would have given for a
spectrophotometer that could have been pulled by oxen or draft horses!!!
Alas, he - due to his fate of being born in Sweden in the early 1840's, and
his subsequent move to the plains of South Dakota in the 1880's [a place
known to contain no trees or practical fuel - save buffalo droppings] did
not have the luxury of steam driven spectrometric devices. And propane or
natural gas simply was not an option.
Well, he and a consortium of Norwegians (and one Irishman named Lewis)
formed the "Great Missouri Spectrophotometer Company." It was a company
whose founding principle was to "express every unique color in a unique
way."
During the summer of '86-'87 they laid the foundation and constructed
arguably he first color measurement device - nick-named "Big Bertha."
It consisted of one giant Dutch windmill by which (through a series of cogs
and leather belts) the giant spring was wound.
Once the measurement staff was removed to a save distance, the activation
lever would be thrown. The spring would provide the mechanical power to run
the modified grain elevator - lifting the canon ball up the gantry to its
apex, after which the ball would plummet down to the 4 gallon charge of
nitro-glycerine below.
The resulting flash of light (well...explosion) would be momentarily be
reflected off the surface being measured (prior to the subsequent
destruction of the surface being measured) and, through a clever arrangement
of mirrors and lenses, would be directed and focused outward towards the
"filters" located in the windows of 16 small sod huts which circled the
"illumination pit." [Like X-Rite, they thought 16 measurements were just
fine.]
I put the word "filters" in quotations, because the fact that they had no
sophisticated filters or gel packs, did not stop them from creating their
own "cowboy" narrow band filters. This was accomplished by taking two panes
of glass, and filling the space between them with a variety of colored
alcoholic beverages (for example the green filter was Absinthe, the blue
filter was Blue Curacao, and the red filter was a Cosmopolitan, etc.).
Well the light, flowing through these "filters" would shine on a
silver/copper alloy plate (bathed in lemon juice) and the resulting trickle
of electrical energy would be transformed into the measurement data via "The
Great Harmonium Inducer."
Which, of course, consisted of a mammoth paddle wheel, sunk in the east bank
of the wild Missouri River (and it rivalled in size the great wheel of the
London Central Water Pumping Authority [which is to say, four stories up,
and four stories down]). The axle of which was connected to an Edison "Queen
Mary Class" DC generator. The resulting electrical current was funnelled to
16 racks of wire wrapped tuning forks in each of the sod huts (and these
were connected, of course, to the silver/copper alloy plates), and to 16
microphones, and to each of the 16 uniquely tuned lighthouse fog horns, one
of which was also located in each hut.
Thusly, each photometric measurement was transmogrified into singularly
unique and EXTREMELY LOUD "audio chords" which bellowed and rolled across
the plains of the Dakotas, and Minnesota......and Nebraska (and were also
recorded by the "color committee" which consisted of 2 choral and 2
orchestral conductors - in a bunker.).
They could measure one color per day.
Alas, after measuring only 30 patches of the ECI2002 chart, Big Bertha was
attacked and destroyed by a consortium of Dakota, Lakota, Mandan, Omaha,
Winnebago, Chippewa, and Ojibwe tribes, setting color measurement back
years....until Sears & Roebuck got into the act in 1919 (as you know).
> 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.
Alright...alright, I promise never to post something like this again.
--
Eric Magnusson
President
Left Dakota
16618 Kelsloan St.
Van Nuys, CA 91406
818-989-2110 x21
Fax: 818-989-2110 x24
www.leftdakota.com
Services, Products, and Color Management for Electronic Publishing Home of
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