Ed Monberg writes: > I MUST (as one with product engineering and cost evaluation experience) > throw in my measily two cents because I am greatly apalled at the truly > amazing prices asked (and paid !!) for these quite simple - in concept, at > least, improvements on the conventional microscope: Ed and the others are right, of course, but most of us outside the realm of engineering have neither the necessary knowledge, experience, or catalogs to put together a machine on our own--much less write the software to control it adequately! Thus I make a modest proposal to whatever software and hardware geeks are listening: --Make up plans for constructing a home-made confocal with features comparable to the Zeiss/BioRad/Leica instruments, using off-the-shelf parts. --Write software that can control the machine and do the image processing and image analysis tricks that we've come to expect. Make it along the lines of NIH-Image, i.e. simple to use but expandible to fit individuals' needs. Sell the whole mess for $10,000, and (the essential point) key the software with an EVE device so that it can't be copied. Oh yeah, and cut me 1% of your sales... --I think there's a market. Martin Wessendorf