D. AUTOMATED COMPOSING AND PRINTING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP72-00450R000100100036-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 14, 2000
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: October 29, 1997
• Content Type: REPORT

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D. Automated Composing and Printing
The printing industry today is in the midst of
changes as dramatic and revolutionary as any since the
days of Gutenberg. In the not too distant future it is
possible that an intelligence article will go from the
analyst's keyboard to a printed volume all in electronic
form, unseen except on the face of cathode ray tube
editing consoles. But before that day comes there will
have to be pressing requirements both in speed and volume
to justify the enormous costs of fully automated systems.
"Automatic printing" is as yet a misnomer. The
chief advances so far have been in automatic composition
where machines have been developed that will take a
corrected paper tape or magnetic tape input and produce
a photograph of the finished page ready for cold plate
making. Printing Services Division has developed the
EPIC system which uses a computer and various tape
making machines to input an automatic composer (Photon 513),
eliminating considerable keyboarding in the preparation
of NIS's. The next advance in EPIC is the installing
of a Photon 713 autocomposer in PSD in June of 1968.
This now machine is some three times as fast as the
Photon 513 and will decrease the throughput time necessary
on many jobs. Many technical improvements have also been
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aG ,, crick p'iate n n , such as the Itek Platemaster
i Y' ':C ~Cidresso r~ph-. ~i igrfiph 705, which are ideal for
t;iio 1i lited nui;iber of runs of most CI i documents. Eastman-
iiodai?k has developed a plate material to be used instead
of iil::~ in automatic composers, which under some condi-
;:ions .;.ill eliminate the platemaking step, entirely.
Still, the greatest improvement has been in automatic
composing. Granddaddy of them all is the Linotron 1010,
,oi:tly developed by Merganthaler and CBS Labs for the
Cove nl::cnt Printing Office. Its great expense is
,us;;d.icd by its speed in doing the large jobs GPO handles.
"lice Photon 713 wilich will be installed in PSD in June
was first developed in the late 50's. By the latest
taadarc's it is a slow machine, but PSD has no require-
:en t; for the greater speed and expense of the newer
}ho i;on ZIP 901 or RCA Videocomp 70 ($350K up). Ii3M has
two different automatic composing systems to offer: its
own less expensive Selectromatic system now being used
by Vii; and a system developed by Alphanumeric, Inc.
before its absorption by IBM, an advanced system more like
~Lho ,inotron and Photon machines in design (and expense).
Fairchild has marketed a Photo Text Setter line similar
co, but cheaper than the others, but it suffers in being
a Japanese machine. Generally speaking each of those
.companies offers a varied line of automatic composers,
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10 Q29ff-
p:?iee rising slz_. p?.; as the speed of composing
isL to match the output of high speed computers. But
ecr.i:c of the limited number of copies of most Agency
uoc~.::or t5 , PSD will p obably never have a need for the
r.ost.expensive automatic composers, nor for the extremely
ktg peed fully automatic presses and binders usually
dcscribed in the more fanciful descriptions of future
developments .
;,;thin the Agency PSD shouldt their first Photon
in June, with perhaps one other programmed, depending
on steps taken by
o automate publication of their
NPIC would also like to purchase a 713
=as an integral part of their !IS (Integrated Information
System). OCI has begun work with their IBM Selectromatic
Composer. There are no other hard plans for autocomposing
o uipment purchase in the near future. Most improvements
will be system improvements in procedures, such as in
EPIC and in preparing material for the 713 and
taking advantage of material already keyed.
Because of the large data files already in machine
language at NSA, they have procured a Photon ZIP 901
as.part of their TIPS System. Since the analyst could
update his files remotely, it was hoped to put many of
these files on mats and publish them as working aids
(about 1500 copies). The high degree of automation on
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-.-,rough piatemak"~ lg has produced a serious
c1, : ; is the printing process, however, with waits up
to weeks. NSA has assembled a committee to find
v: acs 4 speeding up this publication cycle, and PSD is
4a e u:L< to possible dif `iculties in their own post-
(-OIlpo.`1::.ng area.
norther area in the pr:Lnting cycle which will
b ialy need more development is the production of
ra,ics--half tones and map illustrations. This year
v:LGi t;.ill attempt the firs step in this direction.
v1Gi presently has an AUTG11.`AP program which automatically
};a.ots maps to various scales and projections through
the use of a plotting table in combination with digitalized
line and point descriptions of the earth's surface. The
lot Uer will scribe on a mylar material which will act
as a negative for making the map plates for reproduction.
In the more distant future, however, a much faster system
will probably be devised to project these computer stored
digitalized points onto a cathode ray tube from which
turn strips will be produced for cold plate making, in
a fashion similar to the way the CRT now images
individual type characters in an automatic composing
system. In Tact, it is the versatile cathode ray tube
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ie variety of applications ,...cli offers the
G i e is future possibilities in all phases of automatic
~rin
iutomate(! techniques also exist in the preparation
of maa a- c~^ pts prior to the composing- step. Tape-driven
type;vriters and cathode ray tube editing devices can
dra:,icaliy cut down the amount of retyping now necessary
in preparin; material to be printed. In the EPIC system,
_.or example, edited pages are retyped by a tape-driven
typewriter and only the changes must be rekeyboarded.
The most intriguing prospect for automating the
preparation of material for printing exists where this
material is already in machine language as, for example,
in electrical communications systems.
STATSPEC
r 'he problem is this:
1. Their input into headquarters is entirely
by teletype, and constitutes the largest volume of
machine language input in the Agency. However, at
the present time nothing is done to take advantage
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L?pis already keyed input; it is printed on
lotype paper, edited, and manually retyped on
.,.ats for reproduction.
2. The volume of words monitored, and words
..ccived into headquarters is constantly rising.
would like to publish more words a day to
:,.iep up with the rising input. They state they
vc consumer requirements to justify increasing
e number of words they publish. However because
of equipment limitations PSD feels that they cannot
increase the number of pages which can be printed
in the limited time required for a current intel-
1..gonce document. Consequently to publish more will
have to increase the number of positions devoted
to this program or print more words to a page (now
averaging 425 words a page) with equal or better
resolution.
3. The is the biggest daily print
b by far in the Agency and constitutes a high
proportion of PSD impressions annually. Any changes
in the production manner or timing of these publi-
cations will have very large repercussions in PSD.
In 1966 OCS, the and
undertook a series of experiments
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ULVIiL
;d _, i rve jJ o~ he feasibility o:l automating the
i:'cc:,"ciI1 of the The OCS survey,
;u 30 September 19G6 pointed to three areas--
}~ e-eciitinr;, editing, and post-editing, in which a
COI, iL C ' a,16 other devices such as CRT's, could aid in
publication cycle; with three options in both edit-
,~ post-editing, of increaser equipment complexity
,rci costs . The Director of Computer Services pointed
out at the time that under any of the alternatives the
graphic duality of the product might be improved, but
there " ou.ld be no improvement over the present manual
system in accuracy or timeliness. Also, while under
the il,Tplest alternative there might be some overall
s~iVins, in the more elaborate system any savings in
manpower would be more than offset by increased equipment
costs
PSD has recommended that E::~ise CRT's to edit the
nac ino language input and prepare clean edited magnetic
tapes which could be used for automatic composition on
Ie ihof-on 713 to be installed in PSD in June 1968. The
volume o the is such that at least one more
733 would have to be purchased for about $80K ($59K for
the machine and the rest for peripheral equipment
Faster and more versatile auto composers are available,
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.pit $'50K u . Tncier such a program PSD
u11; to 800 words to a page with good legibility,
output without increasing
i page impressions .
is presently considering several fields for
atcr;i t on including automation of
.e ~_rst step t:.s an implementation of their AUTODIN
nt ioils system. The change from a five level code
o eight level ASCII code as their standard commo code
iii Ve them a better machine langu ge input, simplify
wiLh computers, and allow the field bureaus
~o i,i;: o ~ t o ress in formatting far beyond the mere
capitalization possible with the old code.
The second step would be a pre-editing program where
1. non-publishable information such as cables would be
moved from the information input which would be
::or_?ected on some machine such as a Friden Flexowriter
..he machine presently being used experimentally) from
an edited teletype printout. The Flexowriter would thus
a, e i ale machine language for a speedier preparation of
mats for ?,SD reproduction. When this much of the
program had proven itself successfully, it is hoped
to take the machine language from Commo to computer to
CRT devices where the editors will edit the machine
?-FrE#fiE?
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y uoublang
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