On Tuesday, August 23, 2005, at 11:36 AM, P. J. Alling wrote:
Vivitar and a number of other importers had a couple of them. Pentax also had an Autofocus prototype that would work on any K mount IIRC. Honeywell developed the system used by Pentax, and possibly the Vivitars. I'd have to look it up to be sure.
Yes, Honeywell invented autofocus and then licensed the technology to the camera companies. I don't know for sure, but I would imagine that the patents have all expired by now, but at one time Honeywell got a royalty on every autofocus camera made.
Bob
