Print Unchained: Fifty Years of Digital Printing, 1950-2000 and Beyond, A Saga of Invention and Enterprise by Ted Webster

As digital technology continues its transformation of how we work and communicate, a unique sourcebook is being pitched for a limited time at a special discount for single or multiple copies. This groundbreaking presentation book, which early readers assert is a must-have for industry newcomers and veterans alike, is entitled "Print Unchained: Fifty Years of Digital Printing, 1950-2000 and Beyond, A Saga of Invention and Enterprise."

Excerpt #3
The following can be found in Chapter 5: The Seventies, Non-Impact Emerges at the High End: Xerox, IBM and Siemens/Océ (page 146) of the book.

Xerox 9700 and the Role of Gary Starkweather
The story of the Xerox 9700 brings us to the fabled Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which was established in 1970. When the 9700 was introduced in 1977 it was hailed by Xerox as the first major product to be "enabled" by PARC research. The key person behind this program at the Center was Gary K. Starkweather, often described as the father of laser electropho-tographic printing.

The following exceprts from a 1997 interview of Starkweather by Frederick Su tells a bit of the 9700 story as he lived it.*

Why don't you talk a bit about the imaging development at PARC?
I came to Palo Alto in 1971 to build a laser printer. It took a lot of memory to store the images and provide font storage. We built a prototype in approximately a year and managed to prove out the fundamentals of the scanner and xerographic expo-sure technology.

How closely is the laser printer related to the office copier first developed by Chester Carlson?
We were able to use the copier technology by replacing the lens that imaged the copy sheet to the photoconductor with a laser beam scanner that exposed the photoconductor. A laser scanner is just a pointwise method of exposing the photo-conductor. The same toners and developer packages used for copying products could be used with the laser scanner systems we developed.

Other folks, like IBM, had to create their own electrophotographic technology specifically for the printer they built. This required a much heavier investment.

Didn't the patent on xerography expire after 17 years?
There were a lot of upgrades that came along that kept the patent pretty much in a fresh state. There were new additons and capabilities and features that came along in the xerographic system...you certainly could build a 1959 copier, but who'd want to?

Anything else you want to say about the development of the laser printer?
It was more fun than anyone had a right to expect. Xerox was very generous in its support of research. There is one person that needs to be noted in all of this history and that is Jack Goldman, who was head of research at Xerox. The Palo Alto Research Center was his idea. He deserves enormous credit for being so visionary and putting it where he put it and for setting the goals that he did. I think there is over 50 billion dollars' worth of business that's been generated from the technology that came out of PARC.

* Reprinted with permission from OE Reports, a publication of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA USA, November 1997 issue. At the time of the interview Starkweather was the Imaging Architect for the Windows NT platform at Microsoft.

"Print Unchained" Elicits Raves

"It's an absolute must-have for anyone in the field of graphic communications." [Professor Michael Kleper, RIT; Publisher, Kleper Report on Digital Publishing]

"Highly readable . . . .a tale of adventure and intrigue, risk and reward, success and failure." [Art Diamond, toner technology consultant/researcher, author]

"In 22 years of writing book reviews, this is the first book that we have ever given our unreserved recommendation." [Michael Kleper]

"A publishing masterpiece." [Ed Pullen, industry analyst]

The volume is billed as a testimonial to the people and the companies, the invention and the enterprise that built the digital printing industry and continues to drive the historic merger between the traditional analog and digital worlds. Besides serving as a unique industry handbook, the hard cover volume is being profitably used as a memorable goodwill instrument for colleagues, potential shareholders and investors, key clients, recruitment prospects from other industries, and dealers and other business partners.

The publisher, DRA of Vermont, Inc. has announced a 25% discount off list for single or multiple copies.

"We see it as a kind of mind-share bullet unlike anything else now available. As a history it celebrates and lends perspective to the birth and continuing development of digital printing technologies," principle author Edward Webster says. "It is a revolution that will continue to change the face of the graphic arts and also bring an increasing level of publishing power to the people."

Among the others who contributed to the book are Manfred Wiedemer of Océ Printing Systems GmbH, consultants Mike Willis, Mike Zeis and Frank Romano, industry luminaries such as Bob Howard, John Warnock, Chip Holt and Dick Hackborn, and the consultants of I.T. Strategies, Inc. (Hanover, MA) including Mark Hanley, Marco Boer, and Patti Williams.

Author Webster has been involved with the industry for most of the fifty years covered. He has researched and authored dozens of studies and reports for both the computer printer industry and the printing industry. He founded and directed Datek Information Services, Inc., a market, technology, and strategic information resource for vendors of printers and supplies. Earlier he served as technical director of the Business Forms Section of Printing Industries of America, Inc. Currently he is consulting editor to I.T. Strategies, Inc.

Hardcover; landscape format; 272 pages; over 200 illustrations, charts and tables; fully indexed; ISBN 0-9702617-0-5. Limited Edition. Current price is $93.75. Steep discounts for multiple copy orders. To order or for additional information contact DRA by mail, phone (802-464-5845), fax (802-464-6534), email (tedweb@sover.net) or website (www.printunchained.com).