Re: kodak stereo/TDC European?

[P3D Dr. George A. Themelis <fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>That was from the talk at the NSA '97 dinner.  I had always thought the
>cute wrap-around sprocket in the middle of my Vivid camera was a thoughtful
>smart method to make the interoccular distance closer to "proper", but actually
>it was a hack to realist-ize their already being-tooled european format
>camera design.

Thanks Mike.  Someone must document this story in writing somewhere.

>Story was that they expected the "better" 7-P format would take over as
>the standard (so their design was a european format one), but Kodak's 
>coming out on the realist's "side" before their camera was released caused
>last-minute "fixing" of things over to the Kodak-declared winning side.  :-(

If I have the dates right, the Realist was the first US 35 mm stereo camera
and was introduced in 1947.  The VM Personal was second and the TDC Vivid
was the third (but second Realist format camera), introduced in 1952.
The Kodak did not enter the scene until 1955, three years after the Vivid.
Assuming that it took TDC 2 years to develop the system, how did they
know so far ahead what Kodak was planning to do?  Considering that Kodak
was introduced rather late in the stereo game, I would have expected that
Kodak's decisions were affected by TDC's (which already had a complete
camera system, and a *wonderful* :-) and very successful stereo projector
out in the market) and not the other way around.  What's the deal?

George Themelis

PS.  About the "better" 7-p format, I might add that it is perhaps 
better in projection and not the viewer.  Getting 29 pairs from a
36 exp. roll of film (instead of 21) and having the viewer as the
main means of viewing the results, is a strong marketing incentive
to pick 5p over 7p, and I don't blame TDC or Kodak for doing so.


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