Compugraphic
| Industry | Phototypesetting |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired by Agfa-Gevaert |
| Successor | Agfa-Gevaert |
| Founded | 1960 |
| Defunct | 1988 |
|
Key people
|
William Garth Jr. |
Compugraphic Corporation was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based, at the time of the Agfa merger, in Wilmington, Massachusetts, just a few miles from where it was founded. This company is not to be confused with Compugraphics, a British company founded 1967 in Aldershot, UK that specializes in the production of photomasks used in the production of integrated circuits.
Along with AM/Varityper and Mergenthaler, Compugraphic was at the vanguard of what was then considered to be a revolution in the graphic arts: "cold type." Prior to computerized typesetting systems such as those manufactured by Compugraphic, typography for magazines, newspapers and advertising was set using Linotype machines, which physically placed metal type forms (not unlike those found within manual typewriters) in line to form the headlines and text of their subjects. This was known as "hot type."
The emergence of cold type paralleled the development of web offset presses, particularly for newspapers, in the latter part of the 20th Century. The combination of cold type and offset presses dramatically reduced the expense of publishing a newspaper, especially labor costs. Harris and Goss were two companies that led in the development of web offset presses. The Goss Community press, which is still in production as of 2014, was an affordable solution for small and mid-size newspapers, and they frequently bought Compugraphic typesetting equipment at the same time.
When Compugraphic machines and their counterparts came to market, it represented a dramatic leap forward in speed and cost-efficiency and quickly made hot type technology obsolete. Ironically, cold type itself would become obsolete only a few decades later with the advent of desktop publishing and the graphics capabilities of Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga and Windows PC computers and the software that was developed for them by Adobe, Aldus, and others.
Compugraphic was founded in 1960 by William Garth Jr. in Brookline, Massachusetts. Along with Mr. Garth, Ellis Hanson and David Lunquist came from Photon, Corp. at the same time. Shortly thereafter, Earl Fortini joined the firm. The first hourly employee, with a Clock Number 1, was Leslie A. Clark.
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