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New Books in Print FIFTY YEARS OF By Art Diamond "This book, among other things, is a time capsule," writes Frank Romano (Professor of Graphic Arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology) in his Foreword. "It preserves the story of digital printing in a form that will still be readable decades from now: print." Is it a photo album, a history of the family of computer driven printers? Or, is it a chroni-cle of the machines, markets and mentors that built today's sophisticated digital printing systems? Is it a storybook, a page turner that records the development of printing from the First revolution-Gutenberg's movable type-to the Second-digital print? Or, is it a profile of the industry's top scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, studded with anecdotes, portraits and interviews? Is it a Tutorial, a workbook, a resource for students, scientists and executives entering the world of digital hard copy? Or, is it a market research report on the $100 billion in revenues that comprise today's global consumption of ink jet and laser printers, inks, toners and other consumables? After 270 pages, I found Ted Webster's Print Unchained to be all of the above and then some. It is a fetching tale presented in a colorful edition. One might view this important work as Webster's passionate, symphonic treatment of the art, the science and the romance of digital printing in three movements: Prelude, Decades and Coda. The opening chapters examine the fundamental technologies, the roots of this industry. The overture tells us how it has grown, detailing the size and structure of the printer market. In Decades, the author notes that the awesome processing power of the computers that appeared in the 50s created "an 'input-output gap' which drove the rapid evolution of the printer industry." Back then, Remington Rand and IBM were two early contenders seeking a solution to the problem of devising printers capable of matching the processing speed of the ever accelerating computers. This was the decade of the impact device-the drum, chain, line and bar printers that evolved from 100 line per minute (lpm) accounting machines to IBM's highly successful Model 1403, capable of outputting 1,285 lpm. In a cameo from the 60s, Webster tells the tale of Dataproducts, a California upstart that grew from a business plan on a restaurant placemat in March 1962, to a half-billion dollar printer giant in 1983. That saga is unveiled in a 1983 interview with founder Erwin Tomash. It is just one of a number of legends that Webster shares with his readers. As computational speeds increased almost 3000 times from 1951 to 1967, printer speeds barely doubled, advancing from 600 to 1,000 lpm. In the 60s, writes Webster, "it became more apparent than ever that digital printing would have to go non-impact to support the galloping advances being made in computers and communications." With the 70s came the first word processor, the Wang 1200. It appeared in 1971, fol-lowed by the Apple I Computer of the two Steves-Jobs and Wozniak-in 1976. A piv-otal decade, it also brought us the dot matrix and daisywheel impact printers and the ultra high speed, non-impact laser printers of Xerox, IBM and Siemens. Coda, the final chapter, looks back upon those winning strategies that moved this tech-nology and looks ahead to the next decade. Supplementing the text is a glossary of terms specific to impact and non-impact printers, along with a detailed, annotated bibliography, an important aid to future writers, students and researchers. In this highly readable "saga of invention and enterprise," you'll discover a tale of ad-venture and intrigue, risk and reward, success and failure. Webster traces the evolution of digital printing from the dot matrix printers of the 50s, the office machines of the 60s, the non-impact printers of the 70s, the desktop lasers of the 80s, and the first color presses of the 90s. Finally, in a "virtual forum" he and a panel of inventors, writers and consultants discuss the next decade and beyond. Ted Webster's work caps a career that contributed generously to the literature of print-ing and graphic communications. I suspect that this colorful guide to the science and business of electronic printing, mirrors his own odyssey as a writer, editor and publisher. A skilled observer and imaging expert, he often reported and interpreted the fast-breaking developments that occurred on his watch in those same five decades from 1950 to 2000. There is little doubt that this richly-illustrated omnibus
will find itself on as many execu-tive desks as it will on library
shelves, classrooms and research laboratories around the world. |