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In the decades of the 1960's, and 1970's - the Jurassic Era of computing - the way to interact with the brontosaurus-like machines of those days was often a Teletype terminal. This typewriter-like machine was a clattering cloud of more than 700 mechanical parts which interacted in a symphony of such rapid motions that it made their individual functions pretty much incomprehensible. The machine only printed at ten characters per second, but almost never broke down. It really shouldn't have worked that well, but a constant influx of ideas and small improvements over decades made it possible for this complex machine to become reliable, inexpensive - and ultimately ubiquitous.   Teletype ASR33, ca. 1965, shown with top cover off, and part of gear drive mechanism exposed.   And so it is with almost every machine; each evolves as engineers study and understand the details and interactions of the technologies involved. Examples are everywhere and include nearly every type of rapid prototyping technology, as well. Stratasys' fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology has shown a particularly strong series of improvements over the years. At its commercial inception, FDM produced rough, inaccurate, fragile parts that required considerable manual finishing. Over the years the company has improved the process to provide durable materials such as ABS and polycarbonate, support material systems that can either be manually removed or washed away, and now with its latest improvements, considerably higher resolution and surface quality. For scale, the connector shown in the top photos is partly shown at the left of the frame in the left-most picture of this series. All photos of RP parts courtesy of Stratasys, Inc.   The high resolution capability of 0.005 inch (0.127 mm) layers was developed in conjunction with Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. and allows designers to incorporate features as small as 0.020 inch (0.508 mm) into prototypes. Fuji uses the system to produce tiny, intricate components for pocket camera prototypes. Stratasys has just announced that this feature and their wash-away material support system will soon become available on its TitanTM line. Previously, these features had only been available on the company's largest machines. The photos here are details taken from much larger pictures provided by the company. The blow-ups from these details give an idea of the finish and feature sizes that are now possible. Of course, all RP technologies are constantly evolving and improving - but like the Teletype - FDM really shouldn't work this well. For more info contact: Stratasys, Inc. 14950 Martin Drive Eden Prairie, MN 55344-2020 Toll Free: 888-480-3548 952-937-3000 952-937-0070 FX info@stratasys.com