Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 2 COMAPO thematic
map (Switzerland)
access of high tech devices (including computers) for the Soviet bloc countries was
strictly limited. The most developed Western countries formed the so-called
CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) to put an
arms and different developed industrial technologies embargo on the Soviet bloc
countries.
One of the very early cartographic/GIS software was the COMAPO system,
which was developed at my department in 1972. The computational capabilities
were good enough to manage the analyses of various statistical data, but the main
drawback was the lack of suitable output devices (printers). The COMAPO appli-
cation was similar to the well-known SYMAP systems, which used line
(dot-matrix) printers to create thematic maps. Computer output, on monitors and
printers, was limited to typical typewriter characters (letters, numbers and simple
ASCII symbols). These limited symbols could be used to create area patterns on
maps. A modification of the line printer hardware and some programming allowed
the overprinting of characters.
COMAPO was mainly the output system of an application developed by an
institute of the
National Planning Office
. This was a set of methods to print thematic
maps, which were created for analysing and researching regional planning data.
The only method for producing such maps was the traditional (analogue) paper map
production process, which was very time-consuming. Although the digital method
required very expensive infrastructure, they could afford for such equipment on a
state level. As these thematic maps were used for planning purposes and were not
really published in topics or atlases, the low quality of the visualization was not a
problem; similar methods were not widely used at that time or later on (Fig.
2
).
