Xerox has really fallen. Just a month ago I returned a $12,000 Xerox DocuMate scanner because it lacked the features a $500 Fujitsu scanner had. No joke, this is a fallen American company. They outsourced so much of their software development they don't have proper "auto-straightening" and have the most terrible "auto-crop to length and width" I've ever seen. I toyed with the $12,000 hunk of garbage for a week. Reading manuals, visiting forums. Turns out that's the way it ships. Twas returned and I learned a very valuable lesson.<p>This is why tech companies from Asia are winning, not only are they cheaper, they're better in nearly every way. This era of CEOs outsourcing and downsizing to temporarily increase profit and stock is going to have very long term consequences. Mainly the downfall of their own companies. This is what happens when you lack pride, lack loyalty, and lack long term vision.
I got to see one of the original prototypes, at the time it was sitting near the lobby of the Battelle Memorial Institute (who provided much of the R&D for the process and is often forgotten) across the street from the Ohio State University. It was an almost hilarious manual process, almost more like developing film with dry chemicals and powders than the hidden, clean, mechanical process we see today...but it still worked. I imagine it's still there, and if anybody is in the area, it's worth stopping by to see a demonstration of it -- I couldn't find one on youtube, but I did find this explanation.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZKbvPFrc0I</a>
If you find this interesting you might find Risographs and their appropriation by artists interesting: <a href="http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/" rel="nofollow">http://www.woollypress.com/the-riso-museum/</a><p>I don't find a lot of people who know what a Risograph is. For jobs in the hundreds to 10,000 range it can be the most economical solution. The printing process is delightfully mechanical. The machines are, at the same time, very similar to network-attached laser printers, complete with Ethernet interfaces and printer drivers for common operating systems.
A friend of mine once came upon Helen Chadwick photocopying a sedated badger (as you do) in Birmingham Art Gallery for an installation. A brief conversation ensued, constrained somewhat by the need to return the animal to its keeper.<p>I was a bit surprised at the lack of work discussed in the OA as I remember it being all over in small galleries in the 70s and 80s.<p><a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-this-a-historical-perspective-on-the-use?rgn=main;view=fulltext" rel="nofollow">http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0001.003/--copy-thi...</a>