Reply To: 1970s Typesetting

Famous last words. In 1987 or so I was on the advisory board of the graphics department at the local tech school. Somehow I, with my Mac SE and dot-matrix printer, sat at a table with the president of a printing company, the composing department head of the daily newspaper, tech school instructors, and others. When I introduced myself and described my equipment, I could see their somewhat condescending smirks. Someone asked, “What about this new desktop publishing idea? Should we be teaching it?” The answer? “Well, maybe we could teach one class, but we're always going to have the phototypesetters.” A year later the phototypesetters sat in the back of the lab, unsellable paperweights.