4 ms·

How Xerox Invented the Copier and Artists Pushed It to Its Limits

54 points by jimsojim 10y ago

ChrisNorstrom 10y ago
Xerox has really fallen. Just a month ago I returned a $12,000 Xerox DocuMate scanner because it lacked the features a $500 Fujitsu scanner had. No joke, this is a fallen American company. They outsourced so much of their software development they don't have proper "auto-straightening" and have the most terrible "auto-crop to length and width" I've ever seen. I toyed with the $12,000 hunk of garbage for a week. Reading manuals, visiting forums. Turns out that's the way it ships. Twas returned and I learned a very valuable lesson. This is why tech companies from Asia are winning, not only are they cheaper, they're better in nearly every way. This era of CEOs outsourcing and downsizing to temporarily increase profit and stock is going to have very long term consequences. Mainly the downfall of their own companies. This is what happens when you lack pride, lack loyalty, and lack long term vision.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  The whole industry has been struggling with quality issues for years, printer software is atrocious.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    10 years ago I was hoping apple would get in to the printer business. It seemed(s?) ripe for disruption with a new entrant that simplifies aspects, has better hardware/software pairings and 'just works'. Given apple's swing in the last few years, it might not be a great idea now, but it felt like an area they should have entered 10 years ago.
    - mschuster91 10y ago
      Printers are insanely complex, you need a huge amount of skilled people (in addition to patents, which no established printer company will license to a newcomer anyway!) to design all the neccessary parts. Plus they're cheap. A new printer can go for 50€ these days... there's no way to make a profit if you don't have a massive buyer base. And for the software side: I believe that most printer manufacturers, like many IoT/plastic-router manufacturers, just take the firmware from a previous model, bolt on some "new" features and off it goes...
    - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
      Apple used to sell printers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Why their bedrock market is in the publishing/print media segment. The Mac had a companion printer that was set up to match the screen. Thus you got WYSIWYG editing of documents etc. This i think was a massive contributor to the attention Apple got regarding their iPod, because it was a known brand for all the newspapers and such. And since then Apple has been basically leveraging that attention into what it is today. But by ignoring what go them that attention, the near ubiquity of Macs in all manner of media production, they may well be in for a harsh fall indeed.
keithpeter 10y ago
A friend of mine once came upon Helen Chadwick photocopying a sedated badger (as you do) in Birmingham Art Gallery for an installation. A brief conversation ensued, constrained somewhat by the need to return the animal to its keeper. I was a bit surprised at the lack of work discussed in the OA as I remember it being all over in small galleries in the 70s and 80s. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-this-a-historical-perspective-on-the-use?rgn=main;view=fulltext http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-thi...
EvanAnderson 10y ago
If you find this interesting you might find Risographs and their appropriation by artists interesting: http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/ http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/ I don't find a lot of people who know what a Risograph is. For jobs in the hundreds to 10,000 range it can be the most economical solution. The printing process is delightfully mechanical. The machines are, at the same time, very similar to network-attached laser printers, complete with Ethernet interfaces and printer drivers for common operating systems.
- yardie 10y ago
  I used to work in DTP ages ago and this link brings back so many memories. Also, our strippers were 50+ year old women with a drinking problem and a penchant for getting dirty.
bane 10y ago
I got to see one of the original prototypes, at the time it was sitting near the lobby of the Battelle Memorial Institute (who provided much of the R&D for the process and is often forgotten) across the street from the Ohio State University. It was an almost hilarious manual process, almost more like developing film with dry chemicals and powders than the hidden, clean, mechanical process we see today...but it still worked. I imagine it's still there, and if anybody is in the area, it's worth stopping by to see a demonstration of it -- I couldn't find one on youtube, but I did find this explanation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I
- digi_owl 10y ago
  That video was annoying to listen to...

54 points by jimsojim 10y ago

Xerox has really fallen. Just a month ago I returned a $12,000 Xerox DocuMate scanner because it lacked the features a $500 Fujitsu scanner had. No joke, this is a fallen American company. They outsourced so much of their software development they don't have proper "auto-straightening" and have the most terrible "auto-crop to length and width" I've ever seen. I toyed with the $12,000 hunk of garbage for a week. Reading manuals, visiting forums. Turns out that's the way it ships. Twas returned and I learned a very valuable lesson. This is why tech companies from Asia are winning, not only are they cheaper, they're better in nearly every way. This era of CEOs outsourcing and downsizing to temporarily increase profit and stock is going to have very long term consequences. Mainly the downfall of their own companies. This is what happens when you lack pride, lack loyalty, and lack long term vision.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
The whole industry has been struggling with quality issues for years, printer software is atrocious.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  10 years ago I was hoping apple would get in to the printer business. It seemed(s?) ripe for disruption with a new entrant that simplifies aspects, has better hardware/software pairings and 'just works'. Given apple's swing in the last few years, it might not be a great idea now, but it felt like an area they should have entered 10 years ago.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    Printers are insanely complex, you need a huge amount of skilled people (in addition to patents, which no established printer company will license to a newcomer anyway!) to design all the neccessary parts. Plus they're cheap. A new printer can go for 50€ these days... there's no way to make a profit if you don't have a massive buyer base. And for the software side: I believe that most printer manufacturers, like many IoT/plastic-router manufacturers, just take the firmware from a previous model, bolt on some "new" features and off it goes...
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    Apple used to sell printers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_printers
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Why their bedrock market is in the publishing/print media segment. The Mac had a companion printer that was set up to match the screen. Thus you got WYSIWYG editing of documents etc. This i think was a massive contributor to the attention Apple got regarding their iPod, because it was a known brand for all the newspapers and such. And since then Apple has been basically leveraging that attention into what it is today. But by ignoring what go them that attention, the near ubiquity of Macs in all manner of media production, they may well be in for a harsh fall indeed.

keithpeter 10y ago

A friend of mine once came upon Helen Chadwick photocopying a sedated badger (as you do) in Birmingham Art Gallery for an installation. A brief conversation ensued, constrained somewhat by the need to return the animal to its keeper. I was a bit surprised at the lack of work discussed in the OA as I remember it being all over in small galleries in the 70s and 80s. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-this-a-historical-perspective-on-the-use?rgn=main;view=fulltext http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-thi...

EvanAnderson 10y ago

If you find this interesting you might find Risographs and their appropriation by artists interesting: http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/ http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/ I don't find a lot of people who know what a Risograph is. For jobs in the hundreds to 10,000 range it can be the most economical solution. The printing process is delightfully mechanical. The machines are, at the same time, very similar to network-attached laser printers, complete with Ethernet interfaces and printer drivers for common operating systems.

yardie 10y ago
I used to work in DTP ages ago and this link brings back so many memories. Also, our strippers were 50+ year old women with a drinking problem and a penchant for getting dirty.

bane 10y ago

I got to see one of the original prototypes, at the time it was sitting near the lobby of the Battelle Memorial Institute (who provided much of the R&D for the process and is often forgotten) across the street from the Ohio State University. It was an almost hilarious manual process, almost more like developing film with dry chemicals and powders than the hidden, clean, mechanical process we see today...but it still worked. I imagine it's still there, and if anybody is in the area, it's worth stopping by to see a demonstration of it -- I couldn't find one on youtube, but I did find this explanation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I

digi_owl 10y ago
That video was annoying to listen to...