Canon UK Ltd held a three day exhibition at the Royal College of Art in London to promote the versatility of its Colour Laser Copier 500 which it claims has been increased with the availability of 10 new software packages from a range of UK developers. Canon claims the CLC 500 has become a favourite with copy shops and design studios. The new software packages have been developed by Imagica Ltd, London; PDI Systems Ltd, Camberley, Surrey; Maccent Ltd, Birkenhead; Meterquest Ltd, London; Canewdon Consultants, Rochford, Essex; Pershke Price Organisation Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey; AVL, Macclesfield, Cheshire; Letraset Graphic Design Software, London; Shima Seiki Europe Ltd, Tongwell, Milton Keynes; and Pisa Systems, Saunderton, Buckinghamshire. Imagica’s Texnai CLC Master Set is a general purpose scanning and printing package running on Apple Macintosh IIs and 80386-based MS-DOS machines, including such features as a film scaner and still video control, layout designation, and colour correction. The Meterquest Integrator 324 system introduces short runs in full colour and enables the user to merge text with 24-bit colour images, which can then be printed using the CLC 500. The PDI Portfolio Computer Graphics System uses a 33MHz 80386 machine and is a 32-bit colour paint system importing video and still video, using 786,000 colours, overlaying text, charts and photo retouches.
Bubblejet interface
PDI Systems has also developed a Canon Bubblejet interface, which received its first showing at the Colour Expo exhibition. Canewdon Consultants has launched its Concept 2D software from Computer Design Inc, providing a set of tools for advance image processing, fabric design, colour change and analysis. Using the CLC 500, the software can be used for automative design. Maccent Ltd is promoting a package from Customs Applications Inc called Freedom of Press Professional Edition – a print quality PostScript interpreter capable of producing bitmapped graphics to a variety of output devices and file formats. It runs on Apple Macintosh and can be run with Quark Xpress, Aldus Pagemaker, Microsoft Word and other PostScript-compatible software. Pershke Price has the Unda software running on the Sun Microsystems Sparcstations providing fast graphic production of proofs, visuals and instant print in conjunction with the CLC 500. The Unda system has a 19 colour monitor, 460 fonts and PostScript input and output. AVL announced a new server for the laser copier. The new hardware and software package is called the AVL Print Program – it is an interface to the copier for scanning and printing out from the AVL computer-aided design system. MacCLC software from Letraset combines the CLC 500 and the Apple Macintosh, enabling a link into a range of Macintosh desktop publishing applications. The MacCLC enables an image to be scanned straight from the laser copier to be retouched, combined and laid out on the Macintosh. Shima Seiki has announced an interface with the copier for the SOS 480 SGX and Pisa Systems has launched the ColourOut CLC, the latest in a family of colour printing software packages for the Apple Macintosh – the new product is a Chooser level device driver for the CLC 500, with networking options, compatibility with most Mac applications and built-in System 70 compatibility including TrueType font support.
