Last year, my colleague David Zwang wrote a series of articles looking at the evolution of production inkjet equipment manufacturers—how their portfolios changed and how customers have adopted those machines. As 2024 began, I thought it would be apt to do something similar for companies in the display graphics—aka wide-format—market. In this installment, we look at Roland DG.

As with some of the other display graphics manufacturers, my relationship with Roland dates back to the late 1990s. When I was managing editor of Digital Imaging magazine in 1998–99, Roland had released the Hi-Fi JET FJ-50, the first 6-color wide format inkjet printer that could print at 1440 dpi, and they were our back-cover advertiser for (I think) much of the year—perhaps longer.

But Roland’s display graphics history goes back a little further, to 1996 and the CAMMJET CJ-60 wide-format inkjet printer/cutter—a breakthrough at the time when wide-format printers were still largely electrostatic.