The Book Machine

    Date: 14 Aug 91
    Sender:       Public-Access Computer Systems Forum
                    <PACS-L [at] UHUPVM1__BITNET>
    From: Glee Willis <willis [at] unssun__nevada__edu>
    Subject:      For the tidbit files ...

    ...
    [Excerpted from Engineering Education, July/Aug 1991, 81(5):461]

    NOW READ THIS!  BOOKS PRINTED WHILE YOU WAIT

    Went to the local library, tried the nearest bookshop, phoned the
    best bookstore in town, but you can't get get the book you're after
    except by special order?  If only you didn't have to wait.

    Soon you may not have to.  Three British inventors have developed a
    machine to print and bind books in less than an hour.  Last summer
    they enlisted the help of three mechanical engineering seniors from
    Worchester Polytechnic Institute in surveying customers, authors,
    publishers, and bookshop managers to determine the feasibility and
    viability of marketing the machine.

    The Book Machine consists of a compact printer/binder system that
    uses a conventional laser printer.  At a bookstore or proposed Book
    Machine Center, customers would select from texts stored on compact
    discs (which can hold as many as 400 each), and the book would be
    produced on the spot.  This service promises to give readers access
    to books that would otherwise be difficult or time-consuming to
    obtain.  Physicians, professors, and researchers are expected to be
    the initial audience.

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 5:15
                 Distributed: Saturday, August 17, 1991
                        Message Id: cdl-5-15-008
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