What was the name of the WT's special printing machine?

by Paralipomenon 17 Replies latest jw friends

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  Paralipomenon

  I remember on my visit to the bethel, one of the stops was this machine that allowed rapid production of layout in different languages. They were very proud of it, I guess it was invented by a poor volunteer there and it was enough of a breakthrough that they claimed that international companies were looking to buy or license the technology for millions.

  The guide was very proud to say that they were keeping the technology and not sharing. Tee hee hee, take that satan!

  I wanted to see if anything came from it or if it eventually got outdone by computing software.

  Something in the back of my mind said it was called MIPS or similar. Anyone with a WT cd care to try to track it down or remember the name? I know they were bragging about it in a study article or yearbook because I was able to give a comment about it the meeting.
• 

  finallysomepride

  I can make some up if you want LOL

  but no I don't remember sorry
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  AGuest

  MEPS, if I recall correctly, dear Para (peace to you!). I don't remember what the acronym stands for just now, but let me think on it a bit. In the meantime, anyone else who knows can chime in...

  Peace!

  SA, on her own...
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  AGuest

  It's the Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System (MEPS). Here you go:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilanguage_Electronic_Phototypesetting_System

  Peace!

  SA, on her own...
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  Paralipomenon

  That's the one!

  Found a very interesting post from here about it!

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/jw/friends/79508/1/MEPS-Multilanguage-Electronic-Phototypesetting-System-the-early-story

  And a creepy facebook page dedicated to it with 14 "likes":

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Multilanguage-Electronic-Phototypesetting-System/124095127635143

  Thanks AGuest!
• 

  Alfred

  an elder in my congo had everyone convinced that this new printing equipment was capable of translating english into over 100 languages and simultaneously printing the inputted english text in those languages... when i showed him and others in the congo evidence to the contrary (that this was not an automatic language translator and that human translators were still required), i was shunned by everyone for embarassing this elder... this elder wasn't intentionally misleading anyone... he simply didn't carefully read an article published in a wt about it...
• 

  AGuest

  when i showed him and others in the congo evidence to the contrary... i was shunned by everyone for embarassing this elder... this elder wasn't intentionally misleading anyone... he simply didn't carefully read...

  Yeah, no, you stand to lose a lot, if you unwittingly embarass an elder (or elder "type" - one who would be/was an elder), dear Alfred (peace to you!). They and those who sympathize with them can't handle that. Even if they're wrong. What to do? (1) Keep quiet (not your business that they know the truth), (2) agree (even if he's wrong - which is what HE would want you to do); (3) take him/them by the hand and try to "kindly" walk them through it (although, this is the least likely to work as he/they don't want YOU to walk him/them through ANYTHING; or (4) tell the truth... and shame the Devil (which, although perhaps the hardest in the moment, is the easiest on YOU in the long run)

  Sounds like you eventually chose [some verssion of] No. 4. If not... not too late...

  Again, peace to you!

  A slave of Christ,

  SA
• 

  charlie brown jr.

  Damn I was gonna say........

  The Ark of the Covenant
• 

  factfinder

  Alfred-of course you were right! MEPS does NOT translate. There must have been a lot of confusion over this because they published an extensive article about it in g in 1984 or 1985.

  What it does is allow translaters to enter written text in a variety of fonts and type sizes, arrange text and images on a page and it has the proper hyphenation programed right in-for each of more than 600 languages!!!!

  This allows the wts to simultaneously publish the w in 194 languages, since MEPS is used in all of the branches.

  It redefines the keyboard into whatever alphabet the translator needs. But a skilled translator is needed to do the writing.

  This is still a unique system.

  By the way, IPS (integrated publishing system) , which was being developed in Brooklyn while MEPS was being developed at Wallkill, was sold to IBM -this was years ago now.
• 

  factfinder

  AGuest- thanks for the link to the wikipedia article on MEPS!

  It should be noted that the society uses the computer to plate method now too.