MEPS—What It Can and Cannot Do
“IT’S sure great that you have MEPS,” a writer was told by another member of the Brooklyn headquarters publishing staff. “Now writing must be easy for you.”
The speaker sincerely believed that MEPS, an acronym for Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System, could somehow make writing easy. Somewhat amused, but particularly surprised, the writer assured him that people, not machines, do the writing.
Well, then, what can MEPS do? Does it really help with writing? If so, how? Can it translate written material from one language to another?
MEPS for Writing
MEPS is a computer system for preparing material for production on printing presses, primarily offset presses. The heart of the system is the MEPS computer, which is housed within a frame that is, approximately, a three-foot cube. The shaping into pages of the written text is done electronically, using what is called a MEPS graphics terminal. Then the MEPS phototypesetter puts the pages in the form used to produce plates for the presses. Jehovah’s Witnesses themselves, at their Watchtower Farms facilities in upstate New York, designed and built the MEPS computer, graphics terminal, and phototypesetter.
However, IBM Personal Computer terminals are also linked with the MEPS computer. And it is these IBM terminals (which send to the MEPS computer whatever is entered on them) that are used by writers for initial entry of text at the Watch Tower Society’s writing offices in Brooklyn, New York. Does the use of this equipment really make writing easy?
No, because writing is a creative effort that must be done by a person, not a machine! And the machine—in this case the IBM terminal—serves basically the same function as a typewriter. In fact, its keyboard is essentially the same as a typewriter keyboard. The principal difference is that the entered text appears on a screen rather than on a piece of paper. However, if a printed document is needed, a nearby high-speed printer can be activated to print out on regular sheets of paper everything that has been entered.
So, as far as directly creating the words to be printed is concerned, the benefits of MEPS to the writer are not great. And yet there are significant ways in which a computer terminal can assist a writer. How so? Well, in that it is so much more versatile than a typewriter. Typographical errors can quickly and easily be corrected. Words, sentences, and paragraphs can be moved from one place to another in the text with a few keystrokes, and this helps the writer see immediately the result of his ideas.
In the future, a large computer file of the Watch Tower Society’s publications, called a data base, will be available on MEPS. This will make it possible for a writer to call up on his screen information from various publications, such as the Bible, Aid to Bible Understanding, other books, and perhaps as much as a hundred years or more of the Society’s magazines. No doubt this will also prove to be a useful tool for writers.
You may then be wondering: If, for the writer, MEPS simply constitutes a more sophisticated form of typewriter, why has so much time, effort, and money been devoted to developing this computer system?
Preparing Text for the Press
The fundamental reason is the industry-wide move away from hot-metal typesetting and its related letterpress printing to phototypesetting and offset printing. In hot-metal typesetting, molten lead is turned into metal type by what is commonly called a Linotype machine. Then the entire text and picture image is formed into the raised surface of lead plates and mounted on the press for printing. In offset printing the text and picture image of each page has been reproduced on film and photographically transferred to the surface of the offset plate.
MEPS was developed, in particular, to replace the prepress operations that became obsolete when hot-metal typesetting, along with letterpress printing, was abandoned. Its development was mainly necessary because existing phototypesetting equipment in the industry fell far short of meeting our multilanguage needs. And it is proving to be a marvelously effective instrument. Consider what happens, for example, after an Awake! article has been written, edited, approved, and judged ready for printing.
As indicated earlier, the ready-to-print article is stored in the MEPS computer, having been entered by means of the IBM Personal Computer. This article can now be called up on the MEPS graphics terminal and can be composed in the form of pages right on the terminal screen. Any selected typeface, or font, in the desired size can be assigned to any portion of the written text. Then, when ready, the written text is “poured” into rectangular text boxes or into shapes designed to fit around areas reserved for illustrations.
But you may now wonder: How is this material transferred from the MEPS display screen to a form that can be used to produce printing plates for the offset presses? This is accomplished by the MEPS phototypesetter. This machine reproduces on photographic paper the visual image of the pages exactly as they have been composed on the graphics terminal screen. After the photographic paper is processed, it is photographed to produce film that, in turn, is used to make offset printing plates.
Does MEPS Translate?
Remember now, MEPS is a multilanguage system, which is certainly needed by Jehovah’s Witnesses, since they regularly publish in over 150 languages. MEPS is unique because of its ability to handle all of these, as well as many other languages. In fact, presently it is programmed to take care of nearly 200 languages! But what does this mean? How is MEPS able to get written text translated from say English into Spanish?
The point to get clear is that, while MEPS can process many different languages, it does not translate from one language to another! People are used to do the actual translating. Machines are unable to replace humans as truly effective translators. The MEPS graphics terminal has been designed to display a great variety of languages. How has this been done? The keys on the keyboard have been made so they can be redefined, that is, they can electronically be altered to care for any language for which the computer has been instructed, or programmed.
Let’s illustrate this by examining what happens when a Spanish translator, working with a typewriter, translates text from English to Spanish. The translator has the English text before him on paper. Using his knowledge of the languages, he translates the thoughts from English so that the Spanish reader can absorb the ideas that were originated by the writer in English. But the translator cannot type the Spanish text with an English typewriter. Why not? Because the Spanish language has accented characters that are not found on an English typewriter. He needs a Spanish typewriter. And that’s what the MEPS graphics terminal provides. To get the Spanish keyboard, a simple command is punched that alters the keyboard to that for the Spanish language.
But as noted earlier, it is not simply Spanish and English that the MEPS graphics terminal can handle but nearly 200 languages! And as you may well be aware, many languages, such as Armenian, Korean, Russian, and Arabic, use an entirely different alphabet, or script. Also, there are nonalphabetic languages, such as Chinese and Japanese, for which MEPS is now being programmed. Some languages read from left to right while others read from right to left. Programming MEPS to take care of all these languages has been no small task, and there is still much to do!
However, remember: While MEPS can handle all these languages, a person who knows the language has to do the translating, and the translated text has to be entered into MEPS.
Some smaller branch offices and isolated translators do not have the direct need of the MEPS equipment. In many cases they use only the IBM Personal Computer, which stores what is entered on it on a thin, flexible diskette. This diskette is then mailed to a branch having a MEPS, where the material stored on the diskette is composed and prepared for printing.
Administrative Uses
Besides its use in preparing magazines, books, and other literature for printing, the MEPS equipment is also used in many branches for administrative work. For example, it is used to keep an accurate inventory of the amount of literature on hand. The system creates an invoice that is sent to the congregation ordering literature, and then the branch stock inventory is automatically adjusted to show the current number of items left in each language. In addition, in some branches MEPS is used to store and print the addresses of all subscribers of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines.
MEPS Use Worldwide
It was back in 1982 that the first MEPS computer was completed and put into experimental service. In February 1983, Germany became the first country outside the United States to receive the MEPS computer, along with four graphics terminals. It was not until November 1983 that the first MEPS phototypesetter was put into production use.
At the present time, 25 branches of the Watch Tower Society have one or more MEPS computers, as well as a total of 150 graphics terminals. And 24 branches have MEPS phototypesetters. All this sophisticated MEPS equipment has been manufactured by Jehovah’s Witnesses working at their production facilities in upstate New York near Wallkill. It is planned that MEPS will eventually be in use in over 30 countries in the world. Already the use of MEPS has helped make possible the simultaneous publishing of The Watchtower in 30 languages and the Awake! in 14 languages.
Indeed, MEPS is making publishing in many languages easier. Truly, it is an exciting leap forward in publishing, even though it does not make writing easy and does not translate.
[Picture on page 24]
A member of the Watch Tower Society’s writing staff at work at his computer
[Picture on page 26]
Page 24 as composed at the graphics terminal in the English language
[Picture on page 27]
Page 24 as composed at the graphics terminal in the Hindi language