The Mapping Specialist

Vol XII, No. 2 - Winter 2004

Contents | In Focus | Mapmaking | In Memoriam | Geography | Awards | Profile

PROFILE
From the Dark into the Light - The First 20 Years at MSL

Alan Craig - MSL Project Manager and Systems Manager.

On August 30, 1984, Alan Craig became Mapping Specialists' first employee.  Below, Al steps back and reflects on 20 years of success.

Let's start with the "dark decade" first.  Oh! It's not as ominous as it sounds.  In 1984, when MSL opened for business, mapmaking was literally finished in the dark.

At the time, maps were produced manually using materials such as scribe coat, peel coat, stabilene, DuPont TS-5 (strip film), NAPS, PAPS, and positive or negative acting film.  And we used tools known as scribers, Exacto knives, drafting pens, T-squares, type placement guides, triangles, drafting curves, light-tables, and a photo-mechanical type setter to create the maps for our clients.

The actual mapmaking process is too lengthy to go into detail here, but the end result was a stack of flaps (pieces of material) generally made up of scribe coat, peel coat, film negatives, and film positives.  The final approved flaps would then be submitted to the darkroom, with a flap plan, so that a set of composite film negatives or positives could be made.  The set of composites would usually be made up of four negatives, one for each of the primary colors used in printing: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black.

From 1984 to approximately 1994, maps were made in this way at MSL - in essence we made maps in the dark.

From 1984 to 1987 MSL was housed in a cluster of basement offices on Wilson Street in downtown Madison, first in one building and then, due to an increase in business, in additional basement office space across the street.  Because of business growth, MSL moved to its current 7,500 square-foot location on Applegate Rd. in 1987.

Cartography at MSL continued to be analog until 1992, when we purchased our first computers.  The first was an Apple Macintosh IIx, which was followed subsequently by a number of Apple Macintosh IIci's - all with an impressive 80-megabyte hard drive and an additional 64 megabytes of RAM installed!!

From 1992 to 1995, MSL was in a transitional phase.  Then we used computers to enhance the traditional maps that we produced, but in the latter half of 1996 our total map production became digital.  At the same time we replaced our darkroom proofing system with a new HP 755C 36-inch plotter.

The next few years were extremely challenging.  It was very difficult to convert from making maps manually to making maps on a computer.  The most difficult aspect of this process was separating the map components from flaps to layers.  Try to imagine working with media that divides the map components into a logical structure, then suddenly having to make a map with a new technology that does not allow you to place like objects on a specific layer (Adobe Illustrator 3)! Even more frustrating was, early on, needing to wait for software manufacturers to enhance their software to meet our needs - akin to, but radically different than other aspects of the graphic arts industry.

Eight years later, and after at least five generations of Macintosh computers, MSL has a staff of 35 working on Power Mac G4's with at least 786 megabytes of RAM and a 40-gigabyte hard drive.  And, in 2003, we invested in the newest generation of Mac's by purchasing a G5 with dual 2-gigahertz processors.

Today, in order to fulfill the printing needs of you, our customer, HP 3500 DesignJet and HP 3800 DesignJet plotters, and HP DesignJet 20PS and HP DesignJet 5500 printers complete the mapping process in-house - thus bringing MSL from the Dark into the Light.

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