Move Ahead With CTP

Escher-Grad was the first vendor to announce a platesetter based on blue-diode laser technology. The Cobalt 8—a 32x40˝ design based on the same chassis as the existing EG-8200 film imagesetter—is promising to be both fast (3.3 minutes per plate at 2,540 dpi) and cheap (less than $80,000). However, it will not initially support a punch, and plate loading is purely a manual operation.