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Copying
The
copying of
documents has been important in offices since commercial
business. At the start copying was done by hand. Offices
employed clerks who stood or sat copying documents.
The
first alternative to hand copying was invented in the late 17th
to 18th century when James Watt patented a letter
copying machine. He also made portable copying devices but
copying proved difficult. Letter copying devices such as these
were used by Benjamin Franklin etc. By the mid 18th
century copying presses were used widely in offices. Copying
presses, copying books and inks were advertised by as early as
1847. Letter copying presses were widely displayed at the 1851
Industrial Exhibition in London. The Scoville Company was still
using copying presses up to 1913. Screw model copying presses
were marketed until 1950. Because of the size and weight of
these copying presses, potable copying presses were also for
sale during the nineteenth century. Along with typewriters,
letter copying machines are the most commonly found in
photographs of the late 20th century.
Copying presses had limitations as letters could only be
copied within a few hours. Copying clerks were responsible for
the copying before it was too late as letters for copying had to
be written in a special ink. Prior to the invention of inks
made with aniline dyes, copying presses were limited by the
properties of the copying inks.
Carbon
paper for copying was patented in 1806. This helped users of the
Wedgwood copying machines to write a letter while simultaneously
copying it. During the 1850’s manufacturers of the
Wedgwood copying press claimed that up to 10 copies could be
made with the carbon copying method. Carbon copying became more
important after the introduction of the typewriter.
However, neither carbon copying nor copying presses could make
numerous more than 10 copies.
In the 19th century, printers were used for copying jobs such as
business cards, envelopes, billheads, etc. Commercial printers
were used for large numbers of copying.
Smaller copying presses were developed for copying in the
late 19th century. A table-top copying press was
developed in 1857. A stencil copying method was developed in
1875. The trypograph copying method came in 1877 which used a
stylus for copying documents. Several different patents of this
style of copying were patented next. The Stygmograph was
advertised as a copying pen in 1884. The Mimeograph was invented
for copying in 1884.
Gestetner introduced the first “automatic” copying press in
the1890’s. The Roneo Company introduced the Roneo copying
machine in 1906. It used a “dry” method of copying.
Copying was done on a roll of paper which was then cut
afterwards. The Soennecken copying machine was made in Germany
and appears to have been similar to the Roneo copying machine.
A duplicator company in Philadelphia offered a cylinder copying
machine in 1905. Duplicate copying was done by running
the roller over blank pages. The first commercially successful
copying machine was the Gammeter Multigraph and was introduced
in America in 1902. The next machine copying form letters with a
distinct technology was the Hooven Automatic Typewriter. For
quick copying, Multigraph sold a combination of
typesetting/printing copying machine. Their ads claimed that
Multigraphs copying machines could produce 3,000 to 6,000 pages
per hour.
The
copying machines described above could not be used for
copying documents that had been created in the past. Copying
such documents began in the 1840s with the development of
photosensitive copying paper.
The first experimental photo copying was done in
1938.
The
xerography copying process was then patented. The first
commercially successful copying machine to use this technology
was Haloid's Model A Copier.
It was not a plain paper copying machine. The
first plain paper office copying machine came in early 1960.
Its sales increased rapidly after 1960 and Xerox copying
machines quickly became indispensable. The company introduced
its first desktop plain paper copier, the Xerox 813 in
1963. The company introduced the Xerox 2400, a large machine
that produced 2400 copies an hour in 1965.
COPYING PRETORIA GAUTENG SOUTH AFRICA |
