[sdiy] How Bad Is Your Eyesight? (was Re: Burr Brown OPA2134PA)

[Terry Bowman]

> On May 9, 2026, at 9:49 AM, chris <chris at chrismusic.de> wrote:
> Same here. Nearsighted at arount 4.0, so for very close things I just take off my glasses.
> 
To borrow a line from the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, "Luxury."  8D


First, I have very good news: I now qualify for cataract surgery. This means that soon I'll be able to see even better than with contact lenses, which I haven't been able to wear for literally 30 years.


Now for the old fogey part:

I've had glasses since I was 3.5 years old. My current prescription is around -15 sphere, -3.5 cylinder. Naturally, I have presbyopia as well which ruins my native ability to see things from an inch away. 

My lenses are made of the highest index resin there is and they're still thick but at least one side isn't convex anymore. There are no opticians 'round 'ere who can work with such an extreme prescription. The "wizards", as I call our old school opticians, could fit just about anything but they're both long gone. When I show my glasses to the bored optician at Walmort (very professional and over 40) she gets very excited and wants to know everything them. Fortunately, I worked at Perle Vision for five months and learned the whole biz so we're able to talk shop all day.

I also have an esotropia in my left eye which causes double vision. I've never been able use anything binocular because I can't get both eyes to look into the eyepieces at the same time. Working with a bundle of wires is a complete nightmare because of this even though I can see that close. Feeding the wires from an IN-14 Nixie tube into holes on a PC board is simply impossible. Someone else has to do it for me.  o_O

I carry a flashlight around. I use it to scan areas closely so that my left eye doesn't drift around, causing me to overlook plainly visible objects. I've also taken to using colors and putting large labels on drawers full of parts. The cabinets themselves are different colors so I won't make the mistake of looking at drawers in two different cabinets at the same time.

Then there are the floaters, lots of them.


I'm not trying to win the "who's got it the worst" contest here, I'm just saying be glad you're not worse off. 8/

Just in case you read this far, here's the aforementioned sketch (Monty Python version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE


Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"

https://www.astarcloseup.com

"In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king"—Max Payne
"In regione caecorum rex est luscus"—Desiderius Erasmus

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