DECdatasystems

--- Tom Uban <uban(a)ubanproductions.com> wrote: Not the same thing, but thinking of odd and forgotten printing technologies, I am reminded of a 16-gray-scale plotter device that used special multi- layer paper that was ablated in differing amounts by a spark. The stronger the spark, the deeper the coating was removed, the darker the pixel. We used it to print digitized images of industrial parts that were scanned in an ultrasonic tank at about 1/1000" resolution (1/2" diameter part displayed on a 512x512 "hi-res" monitor). The whole shooting match was driven by a PDP-11/73 running TSX-11 from a Fuji Eagle. ISTR it was about $20K worth of computer and disk (including 4MB RAM, disk controllers, RLV12/RL02, serial cards, etc.), plus scanner plus plotter in 1987. The pictures of internal flaws were pretty cool. Unfortunately due to NDA issues, I didn't get to take any with me to hang on the wall after the project was done. -ethan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/