New Back-up Computer / year 1986

[Mosh]

You have to keep on the leading edge. At one time we had the only color printer in town, now you can pick one up for under $50 at Best-Buy. DVD players used to cost $500 now under $50 for a cheap one. Soon wide format digital printers are going to be WAY less then they are now, then what? Design and fabrication skills will always go for a premium, the cream will always rise to the top.

 

[The Equipment Guy]

Mosh...I agree, there was a short period where the big box stores had my desktop printer on sale for less than it cost to buy replacement cartridges. I was tempted to go buy a few and then throw away the printers.

Craig

 

[Marlene]

I remember getting our 4B and how exciting it was. at the price of a font, you really had to want one to break down and buy one. I remember our font budget getting blown on Tabasco because we needed it for a job and dreaming of a day when we could buy a Goudy font which never happened...sad

then we got an Anagraph with a real computer and a screen! wow, things changed big time as I could see what I was doing for the first time. still used the 4B as the plotter. that thing was a work horse.

 

[astro8]

What about before computers and the big thing was a overhead projector.

I used to mark out whole buildings on a scaffold at night or real early in the morning that were covered in signs and complex graphics with that thing, a piece of charcoal and a string line, I loved it.

 

[Marlene]

What about before computers and the big thing was a overhead projector.

that and pouncing. ahh, the good old days

 

[iceracer]

I learned on a IVB at George Brown College here in Toronto.

I have one that I picked up at the auction of my former employer when the guy that bought the lot of material that had the IVB sitting in it gave it to me. I happened to be standing next to him after he out bid me for that lot. He wanted the other stuff in the lot, and he had no idea what the IVB was and asked me if I wanted it. I got it for free.

I still use it now and then, I can still program it in my head even after all these years, and without a monitor on it.

Looking back at the state of the sign industry now, and what it has done to pricing, and barriers to entry, not sure if it was a blessing or a curse....Terry

 

[iSign]

that and pouncing. ahh, the good old days

yeah & "electro-pouncing" too... who can forget following a wooden yardstick for a nice straight edge, and then running into that little metal end *ZAP!* that's one of those things you only do once....

I remember even taking some x & y move cheat sheets along with my resume on a sign job interview... and those + or - kerning keystrokes you would add 2 or 3 of... never seeing the results until it was cut...

 

[heyskull]

I started on a IVB then we got a Sprint and then a SuperSprint.
My first place of employment were Gerber nuts and had everything of them that came out.
We were totally in awe of the speed the SuperSprint we thought it would rip the material to bits!!!
Our IVB had an extra box for extra fonts we must of had about 24 fonts on board and outlines too!!!!
We were Kings....LOL
Back in the late 80s Gerber (Spandex UK) gave us some Plastic Knife Blades to try, needless to say they were rubbish....LOL

My screenprinting friend still has a IVB and it still works for its living!

SC

 

[mark in tx]

recall doing the Bojangles Chicken logo. It took 24 man hours.

Remember the glorious days of charging the customer for rendering time?

 

[Pat Whatley]

Man I miss those days. The day I was hired my boss told me to bring a book to read in the down times. I'd get so bored watching the thing cut I'd sit at the end of the table and weed letters as it cut them. We had notebooks full of XY command sheets and drawings of jobs so you could spend 30 minutes plugging in commands instead of an hour. Remember kerning letters on the 4B as you typed them in going only by memory of what pairs of lettering needing kerning?

Horrible things happened the day our digitizing tablet startup disk went bad. Each tablet had it's own unique start up disk so we couldn't work from a copy (tried many different ones) so the thousands of logos we had digitized couldn't be accessed any longer. That's what finally prompted my boss to buy our first PC and plotter....with kick ass FlexiSign 2.

Doug, I bought an Electro-pounce machine and the 8' x 12' metal wall to go with it a couple of weeks ago. Works great for making woodworking patterns (for those of us who haven't bought a bad-assed CNC yet) The wall was originally set up across from the overhead and opaque projectors (on a cart) so you could move them back and forth to get your scale right,then pounce directly from the projection instead of drawing it out first.

 

[Marlene]

yeah & "electro-pouncing" too

ugh, the zapping! we had a metal table and would use magnets to hold the paper down to it. I got more than my share of zaps from that little set up!

 

[J Hill Designs]

still use our electropounce quite often here - wish my plotter had a pounce function

 

[SignManiac]

My first airbrush was a hollowed out reed and I crushed assorted berries for color. I would take and blow the berry ink through the reed onto the sides of the cave walls. Those sure were the days! I still have some old murals standing to this day in France.

 

[Billct2]

I remember the shop I was in buying the first 4B, around 1980? I think it was the first one Glantz sold in Ct.$10,000 I think.
Before that we had a set of flat plastic helvetica letters in each inch increment up to 8" or so. We did tons of site signs and they all had every company and politicians name on them in helvetica. We'd trace the plastic letters then letter. The 4B eliminated a lot of tedious work.
Right after we got it Crazy Eddies (a discount electronics store) started opening store in Ct and we did rows of vinyl letters around their store with all the brands they carried.
Then the warehouse next store became the staging point for the other new technology, cable TV. They had dozens and dozens of gypsy installers that had to have magnets on their vehicle while they worked here. We'd be doing a few sets every day.
Between those two jobs that machine proabably was paid for in a few months.

 

[signage]

I remember working in cad ant he 286 to the 386 was unbelievable! On the 286 you would wait for the regeneration of the drawing on the 386 you had no wait time!

 

[Bill Modzel]

1988, Macintosh CI, Illy 3.0, Signpost, Graphtec 5100. Fonts all system wide. $35-$65 a family.
About $8,500 total cost. Picked up the Mac at my local shop. Three days later the Graphtec arrived via UPS. Three hours later I was cutting my amberlith. DOS, no lessons. The first job we did was a run of 20 different sintra signs, two color double sided from 2'x3' up to 45" diameter circles for a store chain of 21 outlets.

Up to this time all type was set in our darkroom, scaled up on the overhead projector and the films were hand cut. It the 3 week production time this wouldn't have worked.
WE did all the layout in Illy and cut the films on the Graphtec. This job paid for our whole setup.

 

[Marlene]

My first airbrush was a hollowed out reed and I crushed assorted berries for color. I would take and blow the berry ink through the reed onto the sides of the cave walls. Those sure were the days! I still have some old murals standing to this day in France.

that was you! I was chasing down a giant sloth and saw those and thought, "ugh, me likey wall pretties"