If it were easy, everyone would build instruments from the software up.

“Hardware is a complication that houses the sample and produces the signal. Everything else should be done by a computer.”

Richard J. DeSa, Ph.D.

In the 1960s, Dick DeSa discovered computers. At the time, he was doing high speed, high sensitivity UV/Vis spectroscopy on bioluminescence. He and his post-doctoral advisor, Prof Quentin H. Gibson, purchased a minicomputer in 1966.

Dick took on the challenge of learning Assembly language and writing the code for this computer to make simpler their very difficult measurements.

They focused on millisecond kinetic data acquisition and then expanded into data processing software.

The goal was always to alleviate the onerous and elevate the accurate.

With that background and experience, all OLIS spectrophotometers have since been designed from the software up.

Hardware – light source, monochromator, sample holder, detector, electronics – are exactly and only exactly which is essential for the measurement. All the muscle, the smarts, are in the software.

Beyond making incredibly powerful, versatile, modular instruments, the resulting OLIS products are relentlessly reliable.

What must be done with complex electronics by others is done with software by us. Software doesn’t age, deteriorate, fail. Software changes only when intentionally changed. Hardware, of course, ages, deteriorates, and fails at all the most inconvenient times!

A third advantage of equipment designed this way is the designed-in upgradability. When it is time to change the software – because a new era is entered or a new accessory is added or a new data acquisition mode is needed – one upgrades an OLIS. Our instruments are only obsolete to the extent that you haven’t upcycled it yet. You decide what is obsolete enough!

Compare this against the designed-in obsolescence other manufacturers expect their base to tolerate. Use it until something breaks. Repair it. Or more likely, toss it out and replace it.

Developer, Dr. Richard J. DeSa, with an Olis CLARiTY

our instruments was that they lasted forever, without any hope for service. But one day we heard about a new company, OLIS Instruments. It sounded unbelievable, because it not only would allow us to preserve our instruments, but more so, have them modernized, with a computer attached, allowing us to forget about the use of pen recorders, but also, through the years, enjoy the growing possibilities to process the data and refined our findings.

So we started to seek for the funds necessary to modernize our equipments, and in the process, for some reason, one day we decided to go to Bogart GA and see by ourselves the origin and structure of that miracle. We were surprised at first, the place was not very small, but also not that of the very large companies we were used to see. But perhaps the most pleasant an original surprise was that OLIS Inc was an enterprise, requiring of course, the mastermind of Richard DeSa, who progressively moved from the modernization of different types of equipments, to develop more and more elaborate ones, such as the RSM 1000, and the most recent, the OLIS CLARiTY. But most interesting was that, particularly during its first years, OLIS was operated by a group which is not only remarkable as such, but a wonderful family followed by an extraordinary community.

I want to mention a particular experience with Dr. DeSa: while trying to get the modernization of one of our equipment, we could not raise the funds to complete the full cost. I wrote him, and he gave me a very substantial discount, for which I have always been grateful, but also shows one of his important personal characteristics: generosity before business.

With the modernization of our first spectrophotometer we had the fortune that the whole modification was installed by Richard DeSa himself, who came with his wife, and had the opportunity to visit the pyramids of Teotihuacan. It has been many years that we have enjoyed the attention, support and kindness, not only from the DeSa’s, but also from each and everyone, not employees, but members of a community. So, I end up by wishing the best to OLIS, but more than that, to the wonderful DeSa family and thanking heaven for having put them in my way, an all my admiration to Richard DeSa.

Today, we offer you a full line of UV/Vis and NIR absorbance, fluorescence, circular dichroism, circularly polarized luminescence, and phosphorescence lifetime spectrometers, all of which expand your opportunities for worthwhile measurements, lower cost experiments, and your best opportunity for brilliant breakthroughs.