Usually, why or how a microscope evolves is not recorded, or becomes irretrievably lost over time. Fortunately, many of the original participants in the development and use of the FM 600 are still alive and were located by the author. They were generous in sharing their experience and materials. This is an unusually informative and unique article. It contains both an exposition of the FM 600's design, as well as original source materials including cost and production documents and figures, and one of the Department of Defense's contracts for procurement of FM 600s. It provides a unique "inside" look at how one microscope evolved from concept to implementation.

Paper in Adobe Acrobat format: Columbia Instruments' FM 600, a Unique US Army Field Microscope. Part 1: Background and Development

Video of microscope production courtesy and with permission of Mr and Mrs Larry Crowe.
(Click link to open the video file locally, in Windows wmv format, 4.6 Mbytes.)

Note: Right mouse clicking the paper and video link and saving each file locally to PC, can often be a quicker download than waiting for file to open in the web browser.

All comments to the author R Jordan Kreindler are welcomed.

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