Like an 8 pin dot matrix printer...
I think (and tell people who can remember them) that 2014 3D printing is like 1982 dot matrix printing. Noisy, slow, bumpy, feint, fanfold fed (didnt fit A4 folders) monochrome etc.
I used it to print program listings. I tried to print graphics. I had an old moveable type press for crisper output. Other people used linotype? systems to produce blocks of text that were pasted up and rephotographed to make print plates. I had a pen plotter for linear stuff. Horses for courses.
But I too hate the media hype around 3D printing - and I do remember massive media hype around 'desktop publishing'.
Like the dot matrix printing dumped the pins...3D printing will probably dump the squirty plastic nozzle of curent designs in order to move on. But it is the software that is also driving this revolution. Slicing CAD models for printing is like the screen dump printer driver I wrote : part of the system that can make a useless lump of mechanism perform better, and the basic ideas of rasterising/slicing form the basis for newer mechanics to perform better.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
