[PrintOwners] Itek Story - long

[Harry Brelsford]

A while ago I wrote an article for our Australian Print 21 Magazine 
covering some of the interesting history of Itek. The Itek 975 and 
985 presses were more popular than the AB Dick in Australia.

I got some help from the list so hope you find it interesting.

Harry

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Itek - the first IT company.

I recently witnessed the new Canon ImagePRESS in action, just two 
weeks after we had ordered a different model color copier/printer. I 
was not too upset though because the new device will not replace the 
conventional color copier/printer or the printing press but it opens 
up new opportunities in meeting existing customer expectations for 
higher quality short run printing faster than offset.

The need for faster shorter runs is always there and when a new 
technology is developed to meet this demand then new markets are 
created while existing markets may decline. It has been the same way 
for some time, it is the reason why the quick printing industry came 
into being.

Quick printing using offset technology burned fiercely for a while 
until the advent of digital printing. During it's heyday the high 
speed Itek 985 small offset press reigned supreme but its lifecycle 
was cut short by often slower digital devices, the ImagePRESS being 
the latest development.

Surprisingly this new device costs around the same as we would pay 
today for a small single color offset press which additionally 
required a separate plate maker in order to function.

Platemaker revolution.

The Itek electrostatic paper platemaker introduced in 1963 is another 
short lived innovation yet it caused a revolution. Many credit it 
with facilitating the quick printing industry and it is also the 
forerunner of today's direct to metal plate technology.

Digital printing is really a fusion of the platemaker and the press 
and whilst we may credit Xerox, Canon, Apple, Hewlett Packard and 
others with the digital revolution, Itek was one of the major but 
almost forgotten pioneers. Its name alone is an abbreviation of 
"Information Technology" (IT), ahead of its time when the company was 
formed in the 1950's.

In fact Itek has a history shrouded in secrecy starting with the U2. 
No, not Bono and the Irish supergroup, the U2 spy plane piloted by 
Gary Powers which was shot down over Russia at the height of the cold 
war on 1st May 1960.

The Itek Corporation of Lexington, (Boston) Massachusetts was founded 
by Richard Leghorn an ex Air Force Colonel involved in air 
reconnaissance. The company was well funded and listed on the US 
stock exchange in 1957 with its share price destined to soar to 
unprecedented heights.

According to a Time Magazine article dated 3rd November 1963 Itek 
shares were issued at $2 and rocketed to an astonishing $255 within 
just 15 months. This was unheard of for the era and I did not even 
realize that the world obviously experienced a technology boom back 
then but it shows that history repeats and there is no reason why it 
could not happen again soon.

The U2 was one of the first stealth planes but was shot down at the 
height of the cold war on the eve of a crucial meeting between Soviet 
leader Nikita Khrushchev and American President Eisenhower who up to 
that point had strongly denied the planes existence. The U2's stealth 
capability obviously needed some more work and the incident became a 
turning point in history. At the time we feared somebody might set 
off the atom bomb and also feared for the safety of pilot Gary Powers 
who was later released back to the US.

Spying over Russia had to continue while the remaining U2's were sent 
to spy elsewhere - and some are apparently still in service today. 
The U2's replacement over Russia was the worlds first spy satellite 
equipped with a camera code named CORONA developed by the Itek 
Corporation.

The camera would print onto a newly developed large format Kodak 
polyester film, which was dropped from the satellite in a small 
bucket shaped canister by parachute and plucked out of the air by a 
catcher aircraft. Even with this hit and miss recovery method and a 
string of failures CORONA obtained more information on its first 
successful mission than all previous spy flights combined. The 
photographs provided evidence that the Soviet Union was far less 
dangerous than many had presumed, ultimately leading to the end of 
the cold war.

While the company clearly played a critical role in bringing about 
the end of the cold war they realized that soon they would need to 
use their technology for commercial purposes. The CORONA episode was 
cloaked in CIA secrecy but it is believed that Itek built around 120 
of the cameras.

The small offset press such as those built by AB Dick had been 
introduced back in 1939 and used metal plates which where expensive 
and laborious to produce. Itek worked closely with Kodak on the 
CORONA project with one of Kodak's directors actually joining the 
company. Itek had also made acquisitions such as Dictaphone and 
Photostat using an investment from the Rockefeller's.

Kodak polyester plates.

In 1961 Kodak developed a material called Verilith which was a silver 
emulsion coated paper plate material making run lengths of over 5,000 
impressions possible. Kodak called on Itek to develop a platemaker 
for the new material. In 1963, they introduced the model 10.15 
Platemaster, the first fully automatic, daylight photodirect 
platemaker using the Verilith plates and the quick printing industry 
was born.

Spreading their wings, in 1962 Itek also developed a device called 
the Electronic Drafting Machine (EDM) using a computer from Digital 
Equipment Corporation (DEC) to power it. At the time Itek engineers 
claimed that it could be hooked up to permit long distance design 
conferences between sites such as a missile launch pad and the home 
office. The Internet was obviously available to a select group back 
then.

Other companies like Boeing, Ford and General Motors were also 
developing their own digital drafting machines and at US $500,000 a 
pop Itek did not sell many units but they are credited with playing a 
significant role in CAD (Computer Aided Design) development upon 
which much of today's large format technology is based.

Digital typesetting.

In 1977 Itek introduced the Quadritek 1200 photo typesetting machine 
sold as an "affordable" solution for around US $17,000. The 1200 
found a niche against the more expensive Compugraphic equipment 
available at the time.

Primitive by today's standards but a vast step up over existing 
equipment such as the IBM Composer which was a glorified golf ball 
typewriter, the display on the Quadritek consisted of a 300 mm wide 
screen displaying only 4 lines of unformatted text. The unit was 
difficult to operate with code and key combinations to be memorised 
in order to set type at the right size and style.

 From 1977 to the mid 1980s, Itek built and sold several models to a 
point where the last, the "Digitek," featured a WYSIWIG display on a 
second monitor. The Apple Macintosh would however soon offer a more 
user friendly package even if the toner based image was at lower 
resolution.

At the time we needed to bring typesetting in house in our printing 
business in order to meet delivery promises. I recall weighing the 
merits of the Digitek against the first Macintosh and Apple 
LaserWriter offering. The Mac won out even with the low resolution 
printer simply because it was easier to operate. We would however 
output artwork at double the size and reduce it on the platemaker in 
order to improve resolution. In fact we would present the customer 
with the quality, time and cost options against phototypesetting and 
were soon doing most of our work on the Mac.

Itek soldiered on but the company was taken over by AB Dick in 1988. 
AB Dick in turn was taken over by Presstek, a direct to plate 
company, in 2004. Itek's. competitor, Compugraphic, also from Boston, 
was taken over by Agfa, another major player in direct to plate 
technology.

I just wanted a GTO.

Comparing a small high speed single color press to a slower full 
colour digital device such as the ImagePRESS may seem unfair. The old 
workhorse press of the quick printing industry could print anything 
from carbonless paper to business cards, even envelopes one spot 
color at a time. For some extra cash you could buy a roll up online 
numbering and perforating device. Large solids were a problem though 
even with the skip feature that allowed an extra inking revolution 
between impressions.

In spite of all the advances we still await a digital device that can 
print high resolution single color long runs, envelopes, NCR and more 
at a viable cost rate. There are times when I miss those Iteks but 
even when we had a good one on the floor, deep down we still really 
wanted a Heidelberg GTO.

Perhaps the new device is the GTO we desired. Large solids are no 
problem but it only prints at just over 800 impressions per hour. To 
be fair that is four colors in one pass and it can number the sheets 
as it prints or print a different image on each sheet.

The bottom line though is that today's customer simply has an 
expectation for short run fast turnaround color printing and they 
expect the same quality as all their other printing - offset quality. 
They are not concerned about how it gets done, they just want it and 
to stay in the game we have to meet their needs or go the way of 
Itek, a once major player in the technology league which rapidly 
slipped into oblivion.