Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "millerhillsteve" 
<steverob@s...> wrote:
> Fred was a great man that introduced the Zone system to a legion of 
> photographers.

My feelings about Fred were very complicated. For example, I bought 
his cold light stabilizer (the one circa 1983, not the later ones) in 
which the copy in the catalog bragged that Paul Horowitz had designed 
the contacts on the (what? power transistor I think?) sockets to be 
gold plated, so as to give better connection. This being my field 
(electrical connectors) at which I worked for real $$ at the time, I 
knew this to be pure nonsense. In this application, tin or even nickel 
would have worked maybe even better. Yet the black box still worked, 
though it's Achilles heel was that it cut down the light level a lot 
to acheive stability. He charged a lot for it for that gold plated 
black box.  Sales copy, blowing smoke and I knew it...

On the other hand, I found it maddening that no other manufacter built 
a print washer that could hold 15 prints in different slots. 12 slots 
wasn't enough for me, to make a long darkroom session work for me I 
needed to get about 14 copies of a print(s) and an extra for residual 
silver testing. Just a weird personal preference, but no one else made 
a print washer that could hold as much. I called him up  
half-heartedly because the inserts for film reel washing were a little 
too long and bowed EVER so slightly when inserted in the washer. I 
told him it was a minor problem, I could easily sand it down myself in 
five minutes so I really didn't care about a replacement. He said 
"Well I CARE!!!! Send it in!!!" His sudden vehemence was ,um, 
interesting.<g> btw, when many years later the washer DID develop a 
problem, a serious crack in the housing, it was replaced right away.
Jim H.