Volume 16–1.pdf

arranged by design categories
and the characteristics
of each category are
graphically illustrated. New
ways of designing type are
described and typeface
and typographic experiments
are illustrated and
discussed.)
A word of caution. What
follows here and in the book
is only a summary report. It
would take a multi-volume
work to cover these developments
in depth and, by
the time such a book could
be published, it would be
partially obsolete, due to
the rapid pace of significant
technological
advances.
Today's Technological
Spectrum
Every step of the process
has been affected.
Text originators—
authors, editors and copywriters
have been keyboarding
on terminals that
relay the keystrokes to editing,
makeup and output
stations, bypassing re-keyboarding.
The word originator
keyboards, and
sometimes specifies, the
type. Now, WYSIWYG (What
You See Is What You Get)
terminals are simplifying
this process.
Typefaces used to
be drawn for each size
required. They were also
drawn in all their necessary
weights and a full complement
of characters was
created in every size and
weight by the typeface
designer. Today the
designer need only create
one size and only draw
the heaviest and lightest
weights in a family; computer
driven, software-controlled
devices interpolate
the missing weights. Most
printers and typesetters
create the full range of
desired sizes from one master
font. Furthermore, the
designer may often draw
only about 120 characters
for a font of 250 characters.
Computers and software
can create the remaining
characters from the strokes
and serifs in the basic characters.
Personal computers
with word processing and
typesetting software are
bringing considerable
typesetting ability to offices,
studios, advertising agencies
and departments, and
editorial staffs. The combination
of a PC and software
programs is making desktop
publishing affordable
and practicable. In fact,
some of the same PC/software
front-ends are so
capable, they meet the
needs of larger and more
demanding users.
The computer/software
front-end is being used at
all levels of composition
now Such systems often
include spell-check packages,
thesaureses, and the
ability to select fonts and
sizes from a growing library.
They can produce special
effects, such as sizing, rotating,
stretching of letters as
well as offer kerning and
hyphenation and justification
programs, draw boxes
and rules, and electronically
make up pages with
all elements in position.
Inputting Images
Electronic technology
has made it possible to
"typeset" art. Until recently,
interactive makeup terminals
linked to typesetters,
enabled the typesetter to
output a page with all the
type in position, and with
holes or windows left for the
insertion of illustrations.
Today's imagesetters (successors
to typesetters) and
laser printers can accept
digital information describing
illustrations and then
output the pictures in position.
No more windows, no
more manual stripping
when such systems are used.
Page Description
Languages (PDLs)
Adobe's PostScript is a
language for describing the
appearance of text, graphics,
and images on the
printed page. It is software
used by many raster laser
printers and some typesetters.
It builds the pages at
the resolution of the available
printer or imagesetters.
The program can also be
used as an electronic camera
capable of zooming,
rotating, magnifying any
portion of the page. Other
comparable kinds of software
include Xerox's
Interpress and Hewlett-
Packard's DDL. Unlike PDLs,
DDL is a document description
language that can
describe the format for a
large multi-page document.
What's Next?
Major developments in
the near future will greatly
expand the power, increase
the speed and capacity,
and reduce the cost of computer
systems. Some of these
are:
Bigger bytes. The 8-bit
byte, permitting 8 bits to be
processed as a unit, is being
superseded by 16-bit and
32-bit bytes.
Parallel computers.
The sequential processing
of several computers has
nearly reached its speed
limit. Parallel processing,
whereby many related calculations
are performed
simultaneously, is breaking
this barrier and some such
computers are on the market
now The Connection
Machine, for example, can
perform 64,000 calculations
at a time.
VHSIC (Very High
Speed Integrated Circuit) is
a superchip. Where today's
best chips pack thousands
of transistors onto a tiny
silicon square, the new chip
can store tens of millions in
the same space. Gallium
arsenide chips are being
developed to replace silicon
chips. They will transmit
electrons several times
faster then silicon chips can.
Photons instead of
electrons. AT&T's Bell Laboratories,
among others, is
working on an optical computer.
Computing with light
(photons) instead of electricty
(electrons) could
speed processing from 100
to 1,000 times faster than is
presently possible. Silicon
cuts the speed of electrons
to less than one percent of
its potential but would not
slow down photons. This is a
wave of the future. We may
see a primitive prototype
soon but a working fullscale
model may not be
ready until the early 1990s.
Optical storage.
Today's 3 1/2" storage disk
can hold 20 megabytes of
data. A 5 1/4" optical disk
holds 400 megabytes of
data. Next breakthrough is
to increase the access
speed of optical disks and
to make them erasable.
CD ROM hard disks.
These are the computer
version of the audio compact
disk. They have a large
storage capacity and can
mix media. One disk can
mix text, music, speech,
photography, graphics,
and animation.
Super conductors conduct
the flow of electrons
(electricity) with virtually no
resistance. Until 1987 they
could only operate at such
extremely low temperatures
as to be commercially
unfeasible. Breakthroughs
in 1987 and 1988 are enabling
them to work at
higher temperatures. The
final breakthrough is being
worked for feverishly in laboratories
in the United
States, Europe and Japan.
Voice input. Driving
a computer by voice commands
is done today but
the systems are primitive,
the vocabulary limited, and
micros or mainframes are
needed. Estimates are that
by the mid-1990s more useful
voice input systems will
have evolved.
41
Networking. Computer
users in all areas are
demanding that their PC or
computer-controlled terminal,
processor or printer be
able to talk to others from
the same or a different manufacturer.
Interface devices
are available, but the trend
is toward networks that
both connect devices and
enable them to talk a common
language. Micro and
mainframe links are being
demanded. A number of
LANs (Local Area Networks)
are on the market already
at a wide range of capabilities
and prices. Also wanted
are products that can link
different LANs to each other.
Many companies, including
IBM and AT&T, Xerox,
Wang and Apple are in this
market and much progress
can be expected in the near
future.
X-ray chip etching.
A major breakthrough in
vastly expanding chip
power and speed is moving
off the drawing boards and
into the research labs. Presently
chips can only be
enhanced by reducing the
space between the micronthick
circuits. Chip circuits
are made by etching silicon
with ultraviolet light waves.
The etching pattern is
driven by a large size master
drawing that is drastically
reduced in size and
transferred onto a photographic
negative or mask.
The bright UV light shining
through this mask etches
the circuits atop the silicon.
The shorter the wave length,
the finer the etching. The
plan is to shift from UV light
to soft x-rays. Presently a
chip can hold a million
circuits. An x-ray etched
chip might hold a billion.
A minimum of $500 million
would be needed to get this
project off the ground. No
one company, not even IBM
or AT&T, is expected to handle
this unaided. Government
financing is needed.
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