Nostalgia

In the beginning there was only Itzik Malki.
The flamboyant Italian engineer was the first and only service engineer in Europe at the time. STE has just been established. The service “office” and the entire continent’s spare parts stock was in Itzik’s car’s trunk. He was traveling, putting fires, all over Europe from his base in Italy. And servicing the Scitex equipment in those early 70’s days was very difficult indeed, with unreliable wire-wrapped circuit-boards and very big card cages, not to mention the software which was loaded by paper tape!. He used to submit his expense report for reimbursement about once a year?
In the picture (taken by Aharon Nizani)- Itzik cooks lunch for Bernadette at her home. Bernadette was the first secretary in STE’s office in Brussels (which was located near Garr DeMidi).
Malki is not in the ExScite database and we have lost track of him. If you know is whereabouts, or how to contact him please let me know.

The guest speaker  at a party last month for Scitex’s founder Efi at the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science, in Herzlia, Israel, was Shimon Peres.
Peres, a member of the Israeli parliament and a candidate for president. In the picture here, Efi guides Peres on a tour in Computer Science School.
Click on the picture to see Mr. Peres speaks at the party.

On April 9 we posted here a nice picture of the first product- Kan Akiva, of Scientific Technology (later renamed Scitex).  A couple of weeks later on April 19 we received and posted another picture, which was Emailed to us by the (then) customer Ilan Barak. Well now, nowsome else has come out of the woodwork…. Jacob Laor (who worked on the elcronic system) has Emailed this picture of Aharon Nizani (who worked on the optical system) sitting in control.

I hope that these pictures trigger pleasent memories, and YOU TOO would send us historical pictures.

On April 9 we posted at ExScite/Nostalgia a picture of the 1970’s Scitex product- Kan Akiva (Scitex then still was Scientific Technology). The picture was taken during a field trial on the top of Mount Meron, in Northern Israel.
The giant device was later sold to the Israeli government research arm Refael and was installed in the Southern part of the Israeli desert, the Negev. That picture at ExScite.net has brought fond memories to Ilan Barak. In the early 70’s Ilan had been the Kan Akiva operator at Refael before he joined Scitex. So, Ilan searched through his personal files, found and sent us this picture of him operating the system in the Negev.
YOU too, if your have nostalgic pictures with a story behind them, Email us.

The first product of Scientific Technology (the predecessor of Scitex) was the Kan Akiva– a missile tracking system. Designed and integrated 37 years ago, Kan Akiva included a fantastic collection of technologies, analog electronics, large format reflective optics, high precision mechanics in accurate servo control loop and under radar control. The system was financed by the Israeli defense budget and was delivered to the Israeli army intelligence. It worked in the field for more than 20 years.
The picture was taken atop one of the highest mountains in Israel, Har Meron.
Look at the legs, and the sun tan!!!!.
From left to right: Israel Perl (?), Moshe Broudo, Aharon Nizani. The big white monster in the front is a 12” diameter 5000mm focal length Jonel reflective telescope. Its smaller “brother” purple, on the right, is a Questar 2000mm reflective telescope.
If you have additional nostalgic information and pictures about those glory days, please Email me.
For additional information, see the ExScite/Nostalgia posting from Dec 20, 2004 here.

Lee Ann Torigian has sent us this old picture from the 1980’s.

This macho group of STA guys entered the Corporate Challenge Road Race and this is how they looked after they crossed the finish line.
Pictured from left to right are: Dani Herzka, Unknown (Help), Kip Cooper, Kevin Kennedy, Richard Wells, Chuck Stewart and Bob Bradford.
Lee Ann is currently with Chantry Networks Corp., A Siemens Company in Chelmsford, MA

2007 PODi Best Practices Award

to the ExScite Rick Littrel, founder and president of Magicomm

Amesbury, MA – FEBRUARY 19, 2007 – PODi, the Digital Printing Initiative, has presented Magicomm with its 2007 Best Practices Award in the Relevant Marketing category for an innovative multi-touch targeted direct mail campaign developed for their client Agfa Graphics, an international supplier of integrated prepress solutions to the printing industry. Agfa chose Magicomm to develop a campaign to increase market awareness and generate qualified leads for their ThermoFuse offset plate line. The 120 day campaign included 5 key components and drew an impressive response rate of 5.67%, which exceeded the projected goals by 360%.

Magicomm’s proven leadership in integrated variable data marketing campaigns continues to gain industry recognition for their approach – and for delivering bottom line results for their client’s. “We are thrilled to receive this prestigious award from PODi,” said Rick Littrell, President and CMO of Magicomm. “As early adopters of digital variable data printing (VDP) technologies, we take pride in our ability to create effective and successful multi-touch campaigns for our clients. Our use of leading edge tools and strategies allows us to communicate our client’s message with improved relevance, which increases results.”
PODi’s annual Best Practices international competition is judged by a panel of industry experts in the field of digital printing. Awards were chosen based on relevance in copy, imagery, and offer, in combination with the overall creativity of the campaign.

The ExScite Mike Ross has Emailed us a link to his latest art from San Diego CA.

Click here to watch a video of a creative dynamic rendition of a similar picture.

You can see more of Mike’s digital art at his personal website

After leaving STE in 1997, Maarten Strack founded Tight Digital Marketing & Print. Believe it or not, the company is already 10 years young.

The company is well known for its quality digital printing in Belgium serving the major ad-agencies in the country. Tight Digital services include digital photography, prepress layout and quality digital printing.
The image here reflects the spirit of the company as it celebrates its first decade.
The ExScite community wishes Maarten and his colleagues many more years of success.

Since early 2006, several people have been contributing and editing the subject: SCITEX at Wikipedia.

Here are some interesting quotes from the fairly extensive article:

“…Scitex was founded in 1968 by Efraim Arazi, Scitex’s president, and CEO, Arie Rosenfeld joined the company at that time, established Scitex’s European subsidiary headquarters in Brussels in 1974, and went on to become COO (1987) and CEO (1988).

 Scitex’s initial products included a computer based design system for the textile industry and various military projects.

Scitex literally stunned the printing industry in 1979 by introducing the minicomputer-based (HP1000 utilizing a proprietary OS) turnkey Response 300 color prepress system. Instantly beating it’s two main competitors (Hell Graphic Systems and Crosfield Composition Systems Inc.) to market, thereby filling an enormous need, and serving a labor-intensive, and costly niche–gathering graphic elements, correcting color separations, then preparing photographic film of the resulting page to be run on a press. The company’s sales increased and technology improved every year for the next eight and by 1984 sales reached $104 million. Scitex also developed a sister product line, the Response 280 for use by the mapping industry.

In 1995 former Scitex employees established the ExScite website- http://wwww.exscite.net…”

“…Interesting Side Notes, 1991:
Two instances of unusual and unexpected publicity arrived at Scitex’s doorstep in 1991. The first occurred amidst the Gulf War, when schools shut down throughout Israel. Although a Scud missile landed 1,000 yards from company headquarters, Scitex continued business as usual, and hired 150 teachers to set up makeshift classrooms in a sealed bomb shelter on corporate grounds so parents could still come to work. The second surfaced near the end of the year, in November, when British tycoon Robert Maxwell died mysteriously at sea. His holdings in Scitex were considerable, amounting to some 27 percent of the company stock…”

you can find much more of this by logging into: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scitex .
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most of its articles to be edited by nearly anyone with access to the Web site. The name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia.Please note that the Wikipedia content is continuously being revised and updated.

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