CHICAGO, IL. Not far from the shadows of Woodstock is the quiet town of Kingston, New York, home to Art Stephens' Artco Printing, Inc. History buffs have a different perspective today on the impact of the original Woodstock and how it changed the music world. Stephens, too, made history of his own when he was looking for a more efficient way to run his print shop. After going digital with a DPM2340, he has installed the first A.B.Dick 2-color 9995 offset press with Ink Control System in the western hemisphere. "We regard ourselves as the poor man's print shop. It was slow times for awhile when IBM closed their doors here in 1995, but I've always helped start up businesses and now they are helping me," said Stephens, whose exceptional 4-color process, 175-line screen work is attracting the attention of more than just local businesses. Artco Printing originally was a black and white shop when it first opened. The IBM closing and the loss of 6,500 good paying jobs had a drastic impact on every business in Kingston. Stephens survived it but a personal crisis in September, 1999 had the family reexamine their priorities after the loss of their other daughter, Heather, in a car accident. "We took several months to think about things, but we determined last December that it was time to move forward and get into digital color work," recalled Stephens. "The loyalty of our customers was one of the deciding factors. After we bought the 9995-ICS, we had customers rescheduling jobs while waiting for this equipment to arrive. With the blanket cleaners, it was literally a walk-up and run machine with almost no learning curve to it. We had it up and running in days and had four jobs done by the end of the week." The A.B.Dick 9995-ICS is an advanced version of the company's widely successful 9995 true 2-color offset press. Artco's unit features a console with a digital ink volume setter (IVS), which greatly improves productivity by reducing make-ready time. When making a plate from the DPM2340, a file is sent to a RIP and a disk is created by the volume software, setting the ink requirements for the job based on ink density from the original file. The 9995-ICS also provides an option to use either metal or polyester plates. "Once we had the 9995-ICS in place with the DPM2340, we immediately went to putting half of our work through these devices. It is virtually seamless and the workflow flows," said Stephens, who also employs an A.B.Dick 9975 PFA Perfector and an Itek 975 CMX. "The 9995-ICS is very easy to maintain and the console is exceptional. With the pre-set ink fountain keys, you can tweak the console as you run but the software figures for coverage are really close to accurate right from the start." Artco Printing operates out of a large storefront environment, occupying 6,300 square-feet of a 7,500 square-foot retail building that includes an upper level copy shop with by-appointment hours. Art handles all of the printing and does most of it at night, but credits his computer-literate daughter for being able to make the leap into the digital world.