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New Back-up Computer / year 1986

ABPGraphics

New Member
Just thought you all would like to see my new back-up computer - List price $40,000 - Fonts $250.00 each (I just ordered Cooper black):rock-n-roll:
 

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gabagoo

New Member
Man u got robbed... I paid $17,000 for the same one, but fonts were $325.00. Started out with times new roman and helvetica medium. lol

Then there was the apple 2plus digitizing tablet for $13,000. Oh those were the days!!!
 

Mosh

New Member
Man I paid $10,000 for my Gerber Sprint III, and it had 9 fonts and a SCREEN! I think extra fonts were $250 each if I remember right.
 

ABPGraphics

New Member
Man u got robbed... I paid $17,000 for the same one, but fonts were $325.00. Started out with times new roman and helvetica medium. lol

Then there was the apple 2plus digitizing tablet for $13,000. Oh those were the days!!!


Now that you mention it - I think I got the 4B and the apple tablet in a package special - ???? you never know!!
 

ABPGraphics

New Member
I remember so well going from the 4B to the Sprint and then the Sprint to the Supersprint - I almost cried when I experienced the increase in Speed for the first time!!!!!
 

gabagoo

New Member
yea you cried cause now you couldnt wander off for a coffee while it cut the word "transportation" lol

The digitizing computer, even with an accelerator card could take minutes to do a redraw of a logo in glorious orange.

The best invention they had was the Job Save. Oh the idea that you could save a file........... wow it really was the stone age
 

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
We were the first shop in Florida to get a GDS tablet. It was powered by an Apple II-E and we added a Titan Accelerator to speed it up. I recall doing the Bojangles Chicken logo. It took 24 man hours. If you moved a point you could go to lunch and when you came back it would almost be done displaying the message: Computing ... Please Wait.
 

cgsigns_jamie

New Member
We still have our IVB and Apple 2e setup at the house. They both still work like the day they were new (they're both older then me). About every two years or so we have to pull out an old 5-1/2" floppy disk to cut a file from a job we did back in 1990.

Just the other day I was cleaning out my file cabinet and ran across an old Tubelite catalog with the Gerber Fonts. I think it was like $285 for the IVB fonts (they still have a few boxes in stock if you need some)

Things sure have come a long way.
 

gabagoo

New Member
We were the first shop in Florida to get a GDS tablet. It was powered by an Apple II-E and we added a Titan Accelerator to speed it up. I recall doing the Bojangles Chicken logo. It took 24 man hours. If you moved a point you could go to lunch and when you came back it would almost be done displaying the message: Computing ... Please Wait.


by todays standards it seems unbelievable but back then it was the greatest invention. I had to swing an account with an art department so I could use their stat camera to blow up artwork. You know, take a business card and blow it up to 20" wide....yea distortion like nobody's business, but we digitized....and charged good money!!!
 

OldPaint

New Member
i was in computer heaven.......with a 386DX40 with 4 megs a ram and a HAND HELD SCANNER!!!!!!!!
AND I WAS CUTTING TO MY ROLAND PNC-1000..........FROM COREL 3!!!!!!!!! any WINDOWS FONT WAS CUT-ABLE!!!!!!
 

ABPGraphics

New Member
making a border by hand for a sign with stripes and then using the latest technology to make rounded corners - fun times!
:thumb:
 

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Big House Signs

New Member
We had an ARTY 2000 in 1986...no job save....you had to write down all your x and y moves...the copy height and width....on logos we enlarged and enlarged then sometimes taped together paper from our copier...then did a pounce pattern and hand cut the logo. From growing up in the biz...where my Dad handpainted...thru all the progress I've seen this past 30 some years...I feel fortunate that I have seen it all. It is a regret my Dad isnt here to see where I am in the business now. He passed in 91.
 

Rooster

New Member
Man that thing could save me so much time. It takes me forever to set the text in letraset and then shoot it in the darkroom to blow it up. Plus I think the chemicals from the film developer are starting to affect my health.

I need to find a new supplier for the letraset though. All the sheets I get these days are so old that they crack when you burnish them down. Then the cracks have to be fixed by hand before I shoot the PMT's with the darkroom camera.
 

Mosh

New Member
I still do boarders on big signs that way....

I still have x and y sheets in my files cabinet. We used lots of plotter paper making scale drawig for future use. 99% never got used again.

Those hand held scanners were the worst thing EVER... at the time they ruled.

Corel 2, took the big floppies, I still have all of them. They might be worth something now, I should take them to the Pawn Stars guys. We have 2,3,5,7,9,11,x13.
 

The Equipment Guy

New Member
We used to rent out the fonts for a hundred a day. I had a couple of customers with 4b's that worked their way up to having EVERY font we offered.

I want to thank you guys for paying my mortgage for so many years...just kidding!

I do remember when the Supersprint first came out, we plugged it in, I did about 10 lines of text and then did not even load vinyl or the knife. We did that about 10 times in a row and just sat there amazed out how fast the head moved around.

A funny tale..I had a customer once that was an old hand lettering guy who wanted to buy a 4b and had only heard of them, never had seen one run. We stood in front of the machine and I told him you could do lettering from about a quarter inch to several feet by panelling and his eyes went wide, then I said he could do simple logos with the symbols fonts and he started to get even more wide eyed, then I said he could do pinstripes and his eyes bulged and he started shouting saying I was a complete liar and there was no way the machine could do that!

Once I got him calmed down, he explained that he could see the door in the top (where the fonts went) and that was obviously where the paint would go in, but there was no way that he could carry a machine that heavy down the side of a car and still get a straight line!

I nearly swallowed my tongue!

Those were the days!
 

Mosh

New Member
One thing I remember is the noise of all those weights on the cutter head rattling around. You could not hear yourself think....Old Gerbers did cut nice sharp corners and sometimes I do miss having a tractor feed. On our sprint we once cut 110 feet of film at one time.
 
S

scarface

Guest
To be honest, it's crazy how vinyl machines have grown. It sometimes discourages me to see how fair priced they are and how easy someone can get into the "business" with one anymore but i'm glad to have the great machines i do.
 
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