  Prior to the invention of holography or lasers, Bragg's X-ray microscope
opened the door to optical computation in short-wavelength studies using
spatially coherent visible light, including phase retrieval methods. This
optical approach lost ground to semiconductor detection and digital computing
in the 1960s. Since then, visible optics including spatial light modulators
(SLMs), array detectors and femtosecond lasers have become widely available,
routinely allowing versatile and computer-interfaced imposition of optical
phase, molecular coherent control, and detection. Today, high brilliance X-ray
sources begin to offer opportunities for atomic resolution and ultrafast
pump-probe studies. Correspondingly, this work considers an overlooked aspect
of Bragg's X-ray microscope - the incoherent ionizing radiation to coherent
visible (IICV) conversion that is a necessary prerequisite for coherent optical
computations. Technologies are suggested that can accomplish this conversion.
Approaches to holographic data storage of short wavelength scattered radiation
data, and phase retrieval that incorporates optical procedures, are motivated.
