50th: Long Road to Automation — From High Touch to Hi Tech

Being on-hand at RR Donnelley's plant in Indiana for Creo Products' first big public presentation of this new thing called a digital platesetter (strictly speaking, it may not have been entirely new). From the outside, it looked like a backyard storage shed with lights added around the roof line.

Witnessing the printing industry's 15 minutes of fame in 1993 when the mainstream news media, video cameras in tow, packed the press conference room at Graph Expo in Chicago for Xerox's introduction of the VerdeFilm product, a dry processing film that eliminated silver halide. Apparently, there was a misconception about the film being suitable for consumer photography.