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I'm sure you are right about the Bio-Rad in 
principle, but it wasn't the well-known MRC
500, but the very different SOM 100.  In fact 
so far as I can find out the first microscope 
advertised for sale was by Oxford Optoelectronics
but I believe that before the first one was 
delivered the design had been taken over by a company
called Dubilier, who were thus the first to actually 
sell one.  Dubilier was then bought by Polaron
who in turn were taken over by Bio-Rad.  

The SOM 100 was a stage-scanning machine using a 
He-Ne laser and was intended for reflection imaging,
so it found little use in biology.  Bio-Rad soon
dumped it in favour of Brad Amos' MRC design, which
had biological imaging as its first priority.  This
caused some grief to the Oxford team who had developed 
the SOM - and just to rub salt into the wound it was
a design from Cambridge which supplanted it!

                                              Guy

Optical Imaging Techniques in Cell Biology
by Guy Cox    CRC Press / Taylor & Francis
    http://www.guycox.com/optical.htm
______________________________________________
Associate Professor Guy Cox, MA, DPhil(Oxon)
Electron Microscope Unit, Madsen Building F09,
University of Sydney, NSW 2006
______________________________________________
Phone +61 2 9351 3176     Fax +61 2 9351 7682
Mobile 0413 281 861
______________________________________________
     http://www.guycox.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Boris Zarda
Sent: Monday, 5 November 2007 8:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: First commercial single point confocal

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http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal

Dear all,

one of my customers asked me the question about what was the first commercial single point scanner. I was much tempted to answer straight away with "Biorad", but the longer I think about it the more I am in doubt. At that time I was in my (microscopic) larvae stage and I am not sure to have the time scale right. And I would like to give the correct answer unbiased by company or geographic issues.

Your input would be much appreciated

Boris
___________________________________________________

Boris Zarda
Dr. rer. nat.
Sales Manager Research Switzerland

Leica Microsystems (Schweiz) AG
Verkaufsgesellschaft
Max Schmidheiny-Strasse 201
CH-9435 Heerbrugg
Tel  +41 44 768 36 30
Fax +41 71 726 34 44



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