Hi Fraser,
You sound like a kindred spirit and it's a great pleasure to make your acquaintance!
I've had an interest in the history and technological development of Thermal-IR imaging for ~15-years, since I discovered the first Raytheon amorphous silicon 160x120 FPA microbolometers, and became curious about how they work.
This eventually lead to me owning a FSI Prism-DS, which I purchased used in excellent condition.
I spent a considerable amount of time trying to reverse engineering the digital interface, in the hope of eventually being able to make full radiometric recordings.
Unfortunately, the camera suddenly stopped working, and I recently sold it to help recover some of the original purchase cost.
I had it mounted in a vertical orientation for examining some 10x10 mm electrodes I was forming via electrolysis.
Having the camera mounted vertically, may have caused an asymmetry in the operation of the piston in the linear Sterling Cooler, which I suspect was designed to normally operate in a horizontal orientation. Also, the camera's user interface had been flashing a low battery warning, even though it was being operated from an AC power source.
The alternate hypothesis is that the back-up battery for the parameter RAM and NUC (Non-Uniformity-Calibration) storage may have failed.
However the case, I did learn a lot from using this camera, which was a marvel of design for its time!
I'm now in the process of getting a BAE SCC500H working, and have become interested in Thermal-IR microscopy.
I've got a 15x reverse Casegrain reflective microscope objective, and hope to adjust the close focus distance of the BAE SCC500H to test its use with this lens.
Note: The microscope objective is only specified to 7 microns, but is also available with a gold coating of its reflective surfaces, which will extend its response to 14-microns.
It maybe of interest that FLIR hopes to ship the 640x480 version of their new 12-micron Boson camera in April, and I'm consider the prospect of obtaining one.
I did consider the 320x240 version of the Boson, which is available now for $1400 USD, but FLIR is not yet supporting a Radiometry feature, and is not promising backwards compatibility via firmware or software upgrades. The Boson development software has a manual NUC feature which will be very useful for enabling the use of alternate lens configurations.
The radiometry I'm interested in performing may eventually require measuring 5-micron features at temperatures of ~1600 degrees C.
As such, the expected LWIR attenuation of the Al surface coating of my microscope objective, may actually work in my favour if I can improvise a suitable blackbody source for calibration.
It may also be of interest, that the Boson maybe small enough for a pair of them to be used to form a stereo microscope.
A binocular view would be of great benefit for revealing the surface morphology on the electrodes I'm studying.
Considering my meagre budget, I can't afford to make expensively bad purchasing decisions when acquiring used gear :-(
Going forward, I'd welcome the chance to review some of my design requirements with an expert such as yourself!
Please message me if interested and inclined!
Doug in Ottawa