Xerox Corp’s major announcement yesterday turned out to be a bundle of eight hardware and software products designed to help architects and engineers manage large-format documents. The collection includes an engineering drawing facsimile machine, a low-cost colour plotter, a series of monochrome electrostatic plotters, and a mid-volume engineering copier with an automated cut-sheet feeder. A high-speed printing and plotting system, a narrow-format laser plotter, software for outputting PostScript files to Versatec plotters, and a high performance interface that provides a direct connection between IBM Corp or Digital Equipment Corp workstations and Versatec products were also unveiled. The engineering fax machine enables documents up to 24 wide to be sent and received using standard facsimile technology, and Xerox suggests that it means that it is the first time that professionals that depend on wide-format documents have had an alternative to overnight mail and messenger services to deliver time-critical documents. Called the Xerox 7124 Engineering Facsimile/Copier, it automatically cuts the document up into strips when the receiving machine is a standard office copier: when a 24 by 36 document is sent to an ordinary office facsimile machine, it’s reproduced in three strips of roll-fed paper or nine sheets of sheet-fed paper. Dotted lines appear for easy alignment and reassembly. No prices.
