I'm disappointed, why would Tom Back say this?

In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo group, Tom Back
says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for their eyepiece line.
They're not copies, or reverse-engineered TeleVue's. Now this will
surprise everyone. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

What???? Well, he's right about surprising folks, in fact the
Naglers are quite surprised that he would come out with this
irresponsible statement. Their is a nice history on the Company 7
website that makes it very plain just who copied whom. Plus, given
Meade's history of suing anyone at the drop of a hat to gain
advantage, does it make sense that if TeleVue had copied them that
they wouldn't immediately have presented a law suit.

I urge anyone who has misconceptions about this matter or may be
confused by Tom Back's statement above to give TeleVue a call and they
will get the story straight as I did. Mr. Back might think about
making a call too and offering an apology.

Clyde

Subject: I'm disappointed, why would Tom Back say this?
From: (clyde crewey)
Date: 10/14/2004 11:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id:


In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo group, Tom Back
says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for their eyepiece line.
They're not copies, or reverse-engineered TeleVue's. Now this will
surprise everyone. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

What???? Well, he's right about surprising folks, in fact the
Naglers are quite surprised that he would come out with this
irresponsible statement. Their is a nice history on the Company 7
website that makes it very plain just who copied whom. Plus, given
Meade's history of suing anyone at the drop of a hat to gain
advantage, does it make sense that if TeleVue had copied them that
they wouldn't immediately have presented a law suit.

I urge anyone who has misconceptions about this matter or may be
confused by Tom Back's statement above to give TeleVue a call and they
will get the story straight as I did. Mr. Back might think about
making a call too and offering an apology.

Clyde
***********************************
I dont see Tom as being a person to say something like that! He must know
something we don't.

And Meade needs to redo and update it's eyep line, it's been the same for
years!

As for Televue i love them...

Chas P.

Clyde Crewey wrote:
In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo group, Tom Back
says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for their eyepiece line.
They're not copies, or reverse-engineered TeleVue's. Now this will
surprise everyone. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

That does surprise me, because if it were true and the expertise were
on the Meade side of the fence, why wouldn't they have gone on to produce
the SWA Type 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6's? Maybe he meant that Tele Vue copied
from someone other than Meade?

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

I urge anyone who has misconceptions about this matter or may be
confused by Tom Back's statement above to give TeleVue a call and they
will get the story straight as I did. Mr. Back might think about
making a call too and offering an apology.

Clyde


Hi Clyde. Instead of wondering about what Thomas Back said, lets wonder
about you. Like, why did you pick now to dredge up _portions_ of messages
that are 45 days old at this time, and come out with them on multiple forums
simultaneously ?

Did you get a hankering to go and stir up some BS about TMB? Or maybe
you think it's more beneficial to cut and paste single sentences from whole
messages in order to present them in a context favorable to (whoever you
really are? )

Most interesting though, is your choice in message threads that you decided to
go back and research at this time, so many days after their posting. A thread
which had sort of fallen off the radar, being so old. Essentially, it was a thread
about intellectual property rights (or lack thereof) between Thomas Back and his
lens supplier, LZOS. This thread had sort of been forgotten until a few days ago
when a couple TMB group moderators found themselves very recently banned
from the TEC group, due to their own postings in that very same thread, postings
made over 60 days ago.

So before anyone wonders about what Thomas Back said back in August,
instead wonder about Clydes decision to go back and dredge up one sentence
from the LZOS thread and regurgitate it in multiple forums. Clydes funny choice,
coupled with a competing refractor producer (TEC) banning a few people from
their group due to this very same, very old thread, within the last few days is
pretty odd.

Jeff Gamplin

Hi Clyde. Instead of wondering about what Thomas Back said, lets wonder
about you.

Like, why did you pick now to dredge up _portions_ of messages that are 45
days old at this time, and come out with them on multiple forums
simultaneously ?

The issue arose yesterday on Astromart...

When someone such as Thomas Back makes a statement that seems at odds with
generally accepted history it is worthy of note and further investigation. The
fact that it was written 45 days ago is irrelevent as far as I can see.

In my experience Clyde is a straight shooter who does not run around with
hidden agendas. I have no difficulty with the way Clyde has handled this, I
consider him to be a friend and would like to support him. That's my agenda
here.

In this situation, I believe turn about is fair play.

Why is it that you seem to feel threatened by Clyde? Is there some problem
with trying to sort out why TMB would say this??

jon

(Brian Tung) wrote in message ...
Clyde Crewey wrote:
In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo group, Tom Back
says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for their eyepiece line.
They're not copies, or reverse-engineered TeleVue's. Now this will
surprise everyone. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

That does surprise me, because if it were true and the expertise were
on the Meade side of the fence, why wouldn't they have gone on to produce
the SWA Type 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6's? Maybe he meant that Tele Vue copied
from someone other than Meade?


Brian,

No, this came up on the Astromart forum yesterday when talking about
the new Meade 5000 eyepieces. Some of us were musing if they were
clones of the existing TV eyepieces now as Meade was known to have
done this before. Then another poster wrote that Tom Back had said on
his Yahoo list that the Type 2 Naglers were actually copies of the
Meade eyepieces. This was the first time I heard about this and was
quite surprised to see such a statement from Tom Back. The Type 2
Naglers cannot be copies as they are obviously not a scaled design and
the Meades are. The sizes of the Meades and eye relief specs make
this clear while the Type 2's all have 12mm of eye relief and the 16mm
is actually smaller than the 12mm. No copying there. Anyway, I tried
to post a question on the TMB group and the moderator wouldn't allow
it, though I've received an e-mail from Tom telling me to repost as
he'd clarify. I know some may think I'm taking it out of context, but
I'm not. It's message 18651 on the TMB group. The comment is
inappropriate IMO and should be addressed.

Clyde

In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo
group, Tom Back says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for
their eyepiece line. They're not copies, reverse-
engineered TeleVue's. Now this will surprise everyone.
If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

I have already e-mailed Clyde, and explained my
position. There was more to my post than what he
posted here.

But I think it best to explain in detail what I meant in my
post about TeleVue and Meade eyepieces. First, as
anyone that has even asked me about eyepieces, and
that numbers in the hundreds, including my TMB
customers, I also recommend TeleVue eyepieces as
the best choice. The only exceptions I ever give is my
own TMB Super Monos (a very specialized eyepiece,
and the Meade 14mm UWA). Otherwise, all other
recommendations are for the TeleVue line of eyepieces.

I have known Al Nagler for over 12 years, and we are
good friends. Just less than two months ago, Al and
I were observing and talking optics at the BFSP, and
having a great time. And many of you know of my
review of the 5mm Radian at:

http://voltaire.csun.edu/tmb/tmb3.html

So, if there is any doubt about what I think of Uncle
Al, I will further say that Al Nagler is the best eyepiece
designer in the world, and everyone knows that. He is
the most honest guy in the astro business, and
probably had the greatest influence on amateur
astronomy than any person alive. I personally own
about $4000 of his equipment, mostly his eyepieces,
in doubles, for binoviewing.

Now on to my post. Fair is fair. As much as I don't
support Meade, they did get a bad rap (not from
TeleVue) that the Meade UWA eyepieces were
copies of the Nagler Type One eyepieces. This is
not true, and is the main reason I posted what I
did. In fact, Meade was the first to make an UWA
eyepiece with eight elements, in this type of
design. And why you ask? Because they were
lowering the spherical aberration of the exit pupil,
or kidney bean effect. By add an additional element,
an extra degree of freedom is allowed in the optical
design, and spherical aberration of the exit pupil
can be lowered.

Al Nagler knew this, and so came out with the
Nagler Type Two series, and accomplished the same
aberration control (better in fact). So, Meade was
the first to have an eyepiece on the market, not
TeleVue, that had that extra element for that purpose.

Did Al copy Meade's design? Absolutely not! But
who was first? I can't say this for sure, but there is a
good chance that Meade took apart a Nagler Type
One, and used it as a starting point to design their
eyepieces. This is not fair play, but it is a far cry
from copying Al's design. All designers have used
past examples to improve their own work.

If I have offended anyone, or anyone at TeleVue, I
apologize. If Al Nagler wants to talk to me, I would
be more than happy to talk to him, as it is always my
pleasure to talk to Al.

Sincerely,

Thomas M. Back
TMB Optical

A comment & correction to this thread:

Tom Back says this: "Most people give Meade too much of a
bad rap for their eyepiece line. They're not copies, or
reverse-engineered TeleVue's. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."
.....Their is a nice history on the Company 7
website that makes it very plain just who copied whom.

Televue was & is an innovator, but if you're referring to the following
text on C7's site, it is not correct:

http://www.company7.com/televue/telal.html
"The innovation by Mr. Nagler was to eliminate the residual astigmatism
by the employment of a negative lens custom matched to produce the
desired performance. This was unprecedented - nobody before had ever
attempted to integrate a negative lens and ocular as a matched unit
before."
----
One or more of Nagler's patents reference the 1960s era patent(s) of
Wright Scidmore, who developed eyepieces for the US military using a
negative lens as part of the unit. H. Dennis Taylor also used this
technique for an eyepiece circa 1920, though this was more of a
tentative attempt than an achievement. I doubt Taylor was the first,
the 'Smyth lens' (a negative lens used in a telescope, for corrections
instead of for lowering magnification,) was widely explored in the later
1800s & the idea is readily applied to eyepieces.
In a conversation at RTMC about 5 years ago, I asked Al Nagler about
Wright Scidmore (they live fairly near each other in NY), and he readily
acknowledged Scidmore & referred to the patent citation.

To be sure, Meade has had their faults, with shipping defective
merchandise & etc. And to some extent their commitment to amateur
astronomy seems more like annual door prizes at star parties than the
deeper commitment of TV. But their WA eyepieces were in some ways real
improvements over the early TVs - some of which had excessive 'kidney
bean' (SA exit pupil); the Meade UWA 14mm was, I think, better than the
TVs of that era. So I agree that in spite of legitimate gripes about
Meade, their eyepieces have had an unjustified bad rap - even if they
were built on TV's success.

Then another poster wrote that Tom Back had said on
his Yahoo list that the Type 2 Naglers were actually copies of the
Meade eyepieces. This was the first time I heard about this and was
quite surprised to see such a statement from Tom Back.

You didn't hear such a statement from TB, you read a post from someone
who either read it or heard it from someone else, if the recollection is
correct in the first place. A full quotation of the TB yahoo post in
question would be appropriate here if this idea is to be discussed.
--Peter Abrahams

Brian is probably right. Remember, and I am all out advocate of Apple
computers, Apple copied with FULL PERMISSION many of Xerox's computer
ideas including icons, GUI and the mouse. They just put them together
in the best way and went on to improve them in ways I think the
original design team never dreamed.

Sounds like Thomas knows something we don't maybe a crack optical
researcher can dig deep and find out what it is.



(Brian Tung) wrote in message ...
Clyde Crewey wrote:
In a discussion of eyepiece design on the TMB Yahoo group, Tom Back
says this:

"Most people give Meade too much of a bad rap for their eyepiece line.
They're not copies, or reverse-engineered TeleVue's. Now this will
surprise everyone. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."

That does surprise me, because if it were true and the expertise were
on the Meade side of the fence, why wouldn't they have gone on to produce
the SWA Type 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6's? Maybe he meant that Tele Vue copied
from someone other than Meade?

Brian Tung
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.txt

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 23:32:08 -0000, Peter Abrahams
telscope.at.europa.dot.com wrote:

A comment & correction to this thread:

Tom Back says this: "Most people give Meade too much of a
bad rap for their eyepiece line. They're not copies, or
reverse-engineered TeleVue's. If anyone copied, it was TeleVue."
.....Their is a nice history on the Company 7
website that makes it very plain just who copied whom.

Televue was & is an innovator, but if you're referring to the following
text on C7's site, it is not correct:

http://www.company7.com/televue/telal.html
"The innovation by Mr. Nagler was to eliminate the residual astigmatism
by the employment of a negative lens custom matched to produce the
desired performance. This was unprecedented - nobody before had ever
attempted to integrate a negative lens and ocular as a matched unit
before."
----
One or more of Nagler's patents reference the 1960s era patent(s) of
Wright Scidmore, who developed eyepieces for the US military using a
negative lens as part of the unit. H. Dennis Taylor also used this
technique for an eyepiece circa 1920, though this was more of a
tentative attempt than an achievement. I doubt Taylor was the first,
the 'Smyth lens' (a negative lens used in a telescope, for corrections
instead of for lowering magnification,) was widely explored in the later
1800s & the idea is readily applied to eyepieces.
In a conversation at RTMC about 5 years ago, I asked Al Nagler about
Wright Scidmore (they live fairly near each other in NY), and he readily
acknowledged Scidmore & referred to the patent citation.

To be sure, Meade has had their faults, with shipping defective
merchandise & etc. And to some extent their commitment to amateur
astronomy seems more like annual door prizes at star parties than the
deeper commitment of TV. But their WA eyepieces were in some ways real
improvements over the early TVs - some of which had excessive 'kidney
bean' (SA exit pupil); the Meade UWA 14mm was, I think, better than the
TVs of that era. So I agree that in spite of legitimate gripes about
Meade, their eyepieces have had an unjustified bad rap - even if they
were built on TV's success.

Then another poster wrote that Tom Back had said on
his Yahoo list that the Type 2 Naglers were actually copies of the
Meade eyepieces. This was the first time I heard about this and was
quite surprised to see such a statement from Tom Back.

You didn't hear such a statement from TB, you read a post from someone
who either read it or heard it from someone else, if the recollection is
correct in the first place. A full quotation of the TB yahoo post in
question would be appropriate here if this idea is to be discussed.
--Peter Abrahams

Excellent post, very accurate. In point of fact, it can be argued
that of the older TV designs, only the Panoptic is marginally
original. Their WAs were nothing more and Erfles and I've seen
military eyepieces from the 1960s with the same basic design as the
Nagler T-1s. As for the new Naglers, I don't know, I assume they are
refinements of the Types 1 and 2 with the new glasses utilized.
But, having said all this, it should be noted that the inventor of the
product is not the absolutely most important contributor to ultimate
success of the eyepiece, it's the person or company that MAKES
them a success that deserves considerable credit and TeleVue
has done that. Meade improved on Nagler's T-1, that is indisputable.
The Nagler 2 was in response to the Meade UWA and that is
indisputable.