Ed Vicenzi recently sent me this pdf on the history of Cameca Instruments (login to see attachment).
Some of you may know that CAMECA originally stood for: Compagnie des Applications Mecaniques et Electroniques au Cinema et al Atomistique, because they originally started making equipment for movie theaters and then branched out into more scientific areas.
Cameca Camebax, purchased by WSU in 1981. I had the "pleasure" of using this puppy early in my graduate career, when it was a little over 20 years old. By that time, it had been upgraded to have motorized stages! You still had to navigate with hand cranks, looking through a binocular scope with an FOV that felt like it was 10 microns, but at least it could do automated analyses through Probe For Windows!
This probe was a real work horse, and served WSU for 27 years under the masterful hand of Scott Cornelius, until it was replaced by our current JEOL 8500F in about 2008.
(https://smf.probesoftware.com/gallery/2871_20_07_24_4_16_28.jpeg)
Back in 1981, this beauty could be yours for under $200,000...$199,999.99 after tax. That's just shy of $700K in today's money.
(https://smf.probesoftware.com/gallery/2871_20_07_24_5_39_52.jpeg)
Anyway, thought some might enjoy a little history snapshot.