Yes, a good story. Been there, done that, too... about 12..13 years 
ago. OK, not physically loading wheels but changing and combining 
apertures used in my early designs just to fit the one and only, holy 
standard wheel of one of my former (passed away long ago) board 
suppliers....

Best wishes
Matthias

On 30 Jan 2009 at 11:56, Gary Koven wrote:

> Chris, you're right.  I've been around long enough to have had the
> privilege of ordering and physically loading custom glass apertures
> into the wheel of a Gerber 6200 series vector photoplotter when I
> worked at Redac.
> 
> If you wanted a 50 X 80 oblong, you ORDERED it from Gerber.
> If you wanted a "moiré", you ORDERED it from Gerber.
> 
> There were 24 physical places for different apertures in the wheel.  A
> perfect design could be messed up if the photoplotter operator loaded
> the wrong physical aperture in the wheel...
> 
> Here's a cool history of how they worked:
> 
> http://www.everythingpcb.com/p13447.htm
> 
> Everything I just described is a lost art.  But I was there.

-- 
Matthias Mansfeld Elektronik * Leiterplattenlayout
Neithardtstr. 3, 85540 Haar; Tel.: 089/4620 093-7, Fax: -8
Internet: http://www.mansfeld-elektronik.de
GPG http://www.mansfeld-elektronik.de/gnupgkey/mansfeld.asc

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