# Improvement to photocopying machines **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2021, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219 "2021-08-20T14:12:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/21 "2021-08-22T05:46:14Z")
Back when I worked part time in a library during high school, they had an activator-stabilizer photo printer that would print a microfilm of a newspaper page full size. (2’ x 3’ I think). Oddly, the microfilm was 35mm so it would enlarge a 35mm to poster size (B&W). I made a few bucks at the time enlarging, for example, the school’s football team picture to poster size for some of the players. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/22 "2021-08-22T06:32:56Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > In the mid-1980s I worked at a medium-smallish Silicon Valley company that made laser printers, Imagen? We had an IMPRINT-10 + Canon LPB-10 back then. It was a revelation, and once we had the dvi drivers for it TeX ruled supreme. We actually still have it in our private museum collection (currently in a shed). But yes, Postscript quickly came to rule. For us because it was supported by Apple products. I was using Illustrator early on, so even still using TeX, it became harder to work with something that didn’t suck Postscript. ---
**Author:** ![tavaritz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@tavaritz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavaritz)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/23 "2021-08-22T08:17:30Z")
Few comments: 1. In nineties I was working in International mail in Finland Post and we tried to find fast printers. In the morning when airmail is ready to close the amount of papers needed is huge and they are needed during very narrow window of time. So when we started to computerize the mail handling we needed to find fast printers. IIRC Lexmark was the company that we selected as their printers were faster than others. In the end we needed to install four printers. 2. I’ve dapled with thermal printing at the same time and if I designed a double sided thermal printer it would work like this: A) Thicker paper as there must be insulating layer so that the heat does not print both sides. B) Postion the printheads offset in vertical so that they don’t print the same section of the paper and both can have good backing in the paper trail. Test, test and tweak. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Room](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_room/32/5069_2.png) [@Little\_Room](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Room)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/24 "2021-08-22T12:18:12Z")
If you get something at Hobby Lobby, they use two sided thermal paper receipts. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/25 "2021-08-22T13:47:29Z")
Older (semi-)fast computerized printing could also be achieved by line printers. I suppose it depends on the use case— cranking out newspapers is a different problem, obviously. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/26 "2021-08-22T14:29:47Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > cranking out newspapers is a different problem, obviously. Which brings back another memory from my youth. I must have been 8 or 9 and was taken on a tour of a newspaper printing works. I remember little about it except that I was allowed to set my name on their pride and joy - a brand new Linotype machine. I kept that ‘slug’ for years but it got lost during one of our many moves. > **[Linotype machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine)** > > The Linotype machine (/ˈlaɪnətaɪp/ LYNE-ə-type) is a "line casting" machine used in printing which is manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related companies. It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for one-time use. Linotype became one of the mainstays for typesetting, especially small-size body text, for newspapers, magazines, and posters from the late 19th century to the 1970s and 1980s, when it was largely replaced by phototype The L... ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/27 "2021-08-22T14:56:36Z")
That will set type, all right, but a missing link, probably relevant to the photocopier discussion, is the use of offset lithography. They must have had some big presses capable of inhaling rolls of paper at high speed? ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/28 "2021-08-22T17:18:16Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > That will set type, all right, but a missing link, probably relevant to the photocopier discussion, is the use of offset lithography. They must have had some big presses capable of inhaling rolls of paper at high speed? Keep a tight leash on me here lest I threadjack us straight to hell. I had a Linotype machine that I restored and had running in my garage for several years until I moved and gave it away. A newspaper web press that was using the type created by a Linotype would not have been using the offset lithography process. Rather, they would have been using curved stereotypes made from composed flats consisting of Linotype slugs and engraved cuts for images. Impression-based printing, more or less what all gets lumped into the term ‘letterpress’ these days. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/29 "2021-08-22T21:15:48Z")
The modern digital copiers also have far better contrast control. I remember photocopying my driver’s license and having to use a piece of grey cardboard as a background in order to get both the photograph and the text legible at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/30 "2021-08-22T21:31:20Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > That’s how all of our tests and handouts were made in grade school in the 1970s Well into the 80’s as well. Not sure when I last saw one, but I know they were still using them in my school as late as 1988. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/31 "2021-08-22T21:48:13Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > I had a Linotype machine that I restored and had running in my garage for several years until I moved and gave it away. I’m jealous. When I took a course in printing at San Jose State there was a Linotype machine in the shop but I never saw it fired up, more’s the pity. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/32 "2021-08-22T22:17:55Z")
At least one guy has developed a DVI driver for a Monotype caster, or so he says. It’s supposed to be in the Voltaire Museum. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219/33 "2021-08-23T00:45:07Z")
Yeah, there are a small number of those still running, now under computer control instead of the gloriously complex but also nearly incomprehensible keyboard that outputs punched paper tape. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/improvement-to-photocopying-machines/949219.md?page=1)