I am an ophthalmologist (and I can spell it, too). "Color blindness"
occurs in almost 10% of the male population. It is carried on the X
chromosome, meaning your mother transmitted the trait to you, but
most likely was not color blind herself, as to be affected, she would
need to have the gene on both of her X chromosomes. The odds of that
is 1%. Most "color blind" people have trouble distingiushing shades
of reds from greens, though other forms exist.
Let's forget about color blindness for a moment, and discuss the more
important issue, affecting all, including those who are color blind -
that is, chromatic aberration. The eye is not a perfect optical
system, and suffers from chromatic aberration. As an example, think
of a prism. Sunlight goes in one side, and a spread spectrum of the
sunlight's components (a rainbow of colors) comes out the other side.
Why is this? Because the glass of the prism does not refract (bend)
all wavelengths of light equally. The shorter wavelengths (blue) are
refracted more than the longer wavelengths (red), and the
intermediate colors (yellow and green) fall in between.
How is this relevant? Suppose you are looking at the Check Call
window. You are focused on a red line. Below that is a green line. It
will be out of focus, because green is a shorter wavelength than red,
so it is refracted more. If the red line is in focus (meaning image
on the retina), the green line will be in focus in front of the
retina, therefore, will be out of focus as seen. Your brain will
then have conflicting inputs - what to bring into focus, red or
green?
Bottom line - having to resolve multiple colors of significantly
different wavelengths is very fatiguing, especially if you have to do
it for long periods of time. If you've ever been in a lecture where
the lecturer went a little Powerpoint-crazy with colors and effects,
you may have noticed you had trouble reading the slide - this is why.
You can't focus on multiple colors at the same time, espcially if
they are far apart in wavelength (red/violet being the most extreme
example).
While I have no objection to user-selectable colors, I'm perfectly
satisfied with the present setup. As is, the Check Call window makes
perfect sense. When you enter a call in the log window, if there is
no OK (or QSO info for the same call) next to the band, it means you
need that country/state/section for a mult on that band without the
OK.
73,
Barry, W2UP
On 23 Feb 2003 Garry Shapiro wrote:
> I am not an opthamologist, and the following observations are subject to
> correction by someone more knowledgable.
>
> I recall a special issue of Scientific American on the human eye a few years
> ago which included an article on color blindness. At that time, there was
> the familiar Ishihara Color Blindness Test, administered to military
> recruits and to school kids---where one either did or did not see numbers on
> a mosaic backdground-- and red/green color blindness was discussed briefly
> in all the high school biology textbooks, usually with a lame
> black-and-white photo of a traffic signal. However, the article revealed
> that most instances of color blindness (which I think occurs mostly in
> males) involved nothing as dramatic as a flat inability to differentiate red
> and green, which occurs but is relatively rare, if I recall.
>
> Most color blindness involves inability to differentiate "earth" tones
> combining gray, green and yellow and is rather more subtle. In my own case,
> I looked at the article's accompanying illustrations and realized that I was
> among those affected. That in turn answered another question I had had for
> some years. As a rabid fly fisherman since the late 1960's, I had examined
> color plates in Ernest Schwiebert's seminal "Nymphs", which the author
> himself had painted and which contained the subaquatic forms of a great many
> insects in meticulous detail. I had stared at dozens of insects that
> appeared, to me, identical, and had wondered why this was so. Now I
> knew---they were all different, but I could not differentiate them.
>
> I don't think too many folks will have a problem with saturated primary
> colors used as identifiers.
>
> Garry, NI6T
> >
> >
> > In a message dated 2/23/2003 6:59:23 PM Greenwich Standard Time,
> > k3ww@fast.net writes:
> >
> > > REd and Green? arent some folks colorblind to that? would still need a
> > > symbol N or W but they look alike to
> > > guys with weak eyes..
> >
> > Wow, I forgot about color blindness. Well, maybe RED and Black like the
> > Packet Spots window has? Or better yet, have the color selection be menu
> > driven as with other windows.
> >
> >
>
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--
Barry Kutner, W2UP Internet: w2up@mindspring.com
Newtown, PA Frankford Radio Club
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