re: computer lens design

[Mark_Bishop@ipc.co.uk (Mark Bishop)]

I think there may be a way to draw this discussion towards a close.
It may be that some form of computer was available to lens designers at Leica as
early as 1949 or '51, to be used *in lens calculations*. This is feasible:
complex mathematical calculations were within the capabilities of computers at
that time, and would have speeded up lens design considerably.
That said, it is equally plausible that the 1961 Summilux 35 1.4 was the last
Leica lens not to have been *designed by computer* because computer-assisted
design, never mind CAD/CAM, implies a far greater computing power than was
commercially available at anything approaching a viable cost until the mid-
1960s.
It is astonishing to reflect on how fast computers have evolved. In the early
1970s my father was sales director of a company (in the UK) which offered a
database management service which would send out mailings for commercial
organisations; an early example of the junk-mailers that are so prevalent today.
Their 'computer', in those days state of the art, occupied a large room,
practically an entire floor, somewhat reminiscent in appearance of the Bridge on
Starship Enterprise, with reel-to-reel tape machines whirring and clicking back
and forth. A team of technicians maintained it and temperature and humidity were 
controlled to laboratory tolerances in a futile attempt to prevent daily
breakdowns.
Today on my desk sits a Macintosh 8500 with interleaved 2GB drives and a 200MB
Syquest drive. This combo is faster, and possesses more storage capacity, than
that entire room full of volatile kit.