Discussion

By Gordon Pritchard on Dec 10, 2021

In 1985 I set up the prepress production department for a 28 page weekly newspaper "Prince Rupert This Week" by using a combination of Manhattan Graphics Inc.'s Ready, Set, Go! page layout program (later acquired by Letraset), Cricket Draw to handle the special graphics, and an Apple LaserWriter to generate the camera-ready artwork. Using the LaserWriter output for camera-ready art meant that the type smoothed out enough on newspaper to eliminate the low resolution "jaggies." It also meant that the publisher did not have to purchase the significantly more expensive traditional option of a Linotype machine or a laser filmsetter.
In fact, if it wasn't for the introduction of the Mac and LaserWriter combination, the newspaper would never have been financially feasible to publish in the first place.

PS Remember Betty Handly's thoughts about DTP?

By Andrew Tribute on Dec 12, 2021

Frank's articles on the history of the industry are always interesting. For those of us who have been in the industry as long as Frank it is a reminder of all the developments we have lived through. Like Frank I started early with the Mac and got my Mac Plus in 1985. I have been through a whole range of Macs since then. I remember in 1987 how as a member of the the UK IBM PC Users Group I took my Mac Plus to a Group meeting to explain to all the members what desktop publishing was all about as you could not do DTP on a PC at that time. I gave up using a PC in the early 1990s when all the relevant Windows software all operated on the Mac. I still have quite a few old Macs somewhere around the house, the oldest being a G4 desktop and a Powerbook G4. Unfortunately unlike Frank I don't have a museum to show them together with one the first iMacs and a very early iPad. I have offered these to charities to get computers to children. Unfortunately they are not acceptable as they cannot run the latest software, particularly games. My oldest Apple product that is still used is my gold Cross pen with the Apple logo that I was given by Apple Senior management on my first consultancy visit to Apple headquarters. Even though I have been retired almost ten years I still have two Macs on my desk these being the latest MacMini. I also have an ageing iPad and of course a recent iPhone. My whole consulting and writing career has been built around the use of Apple technology. For the whole printing, publishing and media industries Apple has been the force that has driven the change of the industry from analog to digital.

Keep up the great writing Frank. It stirs my memory of the great times I had since I started in the industry in 1961.

By Karl Loatman on Dec 13, 2021

Yes, much has changed in the industry in the last 45 years. When Zikon first came to the US a proposal for 2 units was $600k and the mainframe to run them was $2 Million plus staff! The last Digital Press I sold was $860k & the computer to run it was $4k & one person!

By Chris Lynn on Dec 13, 2021

Andy, you and I should get together - I still have shrink-wrapped copies of Ready, Set, Go! and Aldus Persuasion, acquired when I was with Crosfield in the 80s, but no Mac old enough to run them. (Or perhaps the Museum can use them...?)

By Thomas Chapman on Dec 14, 2021

I bought my first Apple Computer and printer in 1986 to help my wife with her paper writing in order get through graduate school. I used my background in "analog pre-press" to help set up the digital page layout form in the format her studies program required - some long nights.
Much has changed along the way in my career with the printing and graphics industry and the Apple products have been part of that progression. Like Chris Lynn, I, too, was part of Crosfield in the 80s and the rest has been an amazing journey of learning and especially sharing the knowledge with the next generation in printing and graphics.

By Jerry Brown on Dec 14, 2021

My first personal introduction to Macintosh was at an August 1987 weekend “Desktop Publishing” seminar at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The seminar was taught by Cal Poly SLO Printing Technology professor Mike Blum and DTP pioneer Brian Lawler, then owner of Tintype Graphics, a local print shop. The class of about 30 each had a Mac Plus to work with and the computers were all connected by AppleTalk to a LaserWriter Plus. In addition to working with PageMaker, we also had hands-on experience with a brand new application, Adobe Illustrator. Meanwhile, a Cal Poly student attempted to output four color film separations from a Linotype 100 imagesetter. Unfortunately, after 18 hours of processing his PostScript file, the imagesetter only output two or three seps before succumbing to a “Limitcheck error”. Nevertheless, the long, uncut roll of imaged film was quite impressive to see.

The class was a personal epiphany for me. I was a photo typesetter/paste-up artist/cameraman/stripper/plate maker for a small shop in the L.A. area. The seminar introduced me to the future of digital prepress and there was no going back! When I returned to work the following Monday, I pestered my boss into buying the recently introduced Mac SE (with internal 20 megabyte drive!), a LaserWriter Plus, PageMaker 2.0, Adobe Illustrator, and Word 3.1. Long story short, I retired from that same company in 2019 as manager of a modest Mac-based prepress department. To this day, except for the people in accounting*, everyone in the company uses a Mac. Because of me. I was a “Mac Evangelist”. And it was all was due to a memorable Summer seminar at Cal Poly SLO.

*They are in the process of switching to Macs.