An offhand comment to my supervisor, questioning why we were pursuing the analog SVF when digital images would be much better, resulted in me having to conduct a print comparison test. We had access to digitally scanned images from the research labs. The image above was among them. Another one, I remember, was of a colorful baboon.
I was to record the image on all the video devices we had available, then connect the devices to the SV6500 printer via composite or RGB video connection and make a print on the printer. The SV6500 had a parallel digital interface so the digital file could be downloaded directly to the printer framestore without going through video conversion. This, I hypothesized would be the best print. And it was! The SVFloppy was by far the worse. The results of this test enboldened me to push for a switch to digital products ASAP. I used the print comparison results to try and convince others on the team. It was beginning to have an impact, but it would take much longer.
Most of the engineers in EPD advanced development were video engineers, there were only a few integrated (hardware) software engineers that used and understood computing. Personal computers were fairly brand new, so few engineers had experience with them, but I did. |
