Pens belong in drafting...
Written on December 4th, 2025 by Tech Ads
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not in Motting!
Geo Space’s revolutionary DP-203 Digital
CRT Plotter uses a CRT’s electron beam for
plotting. Does away with messy ink receptacles
and skipping ballpoint pens. An electron beam
positions up to 96 million plotted data points
over an entire 2400 sq. in. surface to within
+Y bit. That’s +.0025 of an inch in the 200
dppi plotting mode. Match that accuracy with
a pen plotter!
Do you require multiple copies of any
plot you produce? The positive film images
of the Geo Space DP-203 CRT Plotter can
be used to produce multiple Ozalid or
Xerox copies at a cost of only pennies apiece.
On-line plotting is now a practical,
economic reality. Gone are the separate
core buffers and controllers of yesteryear.
€
Using Geo Space furnished ALPACA® linkage
software, you can produce detailed contour or
cartographic maps, electronic schematics, PERT
charts, tabular charts, annotated drawings and
the like. One-pass annotation to describe and
label your primary images.
Another important benefit—up to 32 levels
of intensity shading can be program selected
to enhance the tonal contrast of your com-
pleted imagery. Background area shading also.
Want more information on the most
advanced plotting peripheral available today
for digital computers? Write or call Geo Space
Corporation, Computer Division, A Subsidiary
of Westec Corporation, 3009 South Post
Oak Road, Houston, Texas 77027.
Telephone: 713/NA 2-4570.
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‘Pens belong in drafting…’
The Geo Space DP-203 CRT Plotter was an early digital scanner. The DP-203 required a document to be transferred to a specialised form of photosensitive film which was then stored in a Plot-O-Mag film cartridge. These films were around 40 by 60 inches (approx. 1 meter by 1.5 meters) in dimension. The film was then transferred to a drum and exposed to a CRT optical head that was able to record data points at one of 32 different levels of greyscale. The DP-203 was able to record at 100 by 100 or 200 by 200 data points per square inch at around 2000 square inches per minute. Suggested uses include construction plans, mapping, integrated circuit masks, and general document reproduction.
The Geo Space DP-203 CRT Plotter was unsuccessfully evaluated by the CIA in 1967 for geospatial digitisation. They found memory usage at 2 mils resolution to be excessive and quality at 10 mils resolution to be poor.
An introduction to the Geo Space DP-203 CRT Plotter can be found at Archive.org.
Taken from: Information Display - Volume 3, Number 4 (July/August 1966)