science

Print Gocco

Print Gocco is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Print Gocco rather than just read about it. In short: Print Gocco (プリントゴッコ, Purinto Gokko) was a compact, self-contained card printing system developed by Riso Kagaku Corporation and first sold in 1977. Print Gocco achieved significant success and sold over 10 million units cumulatively before production ceased in 2008.

Key takeaways

Print Gocco belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Print Gocco to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Print Gocco from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Print Gocco (プリントゴッコ, Purinto Gokko) was a compact, self-contained card printing system developed by Riso Kagaku Corporation and first sold in 1977. Print Gocco achieved significant success and sold over 10 million units cumulatively before production ceased in 2008. The system was developed for the Japanese custom of sending New Year's Day postcards (年賀状, nengajō) to friends and relatives.

Print Gocco's name was derived from the Japanese word gokko (ごっこ), loosely translated as make-believe play. The name and toy-like design of Print Gocco stem from Riso Kagaku president Noboru Hayama's belief in the importance of play. Hayama stated, "make-believe play is a source of intellectual education and its spirit is... an important national heritage. Therefore, I decided to use the word 'Gocco' as a part of this product name."

Basic operation procedures The Print Gocco process was a variant of screen printing; Print Gocco housed both the screen-making and screen-printing elements within one compact footprint with a hinged plastic frame. The materials included proprietary blank screens, consisting of thin layer of thermoplastic bonded to a mesh, held in a cardboard frame and covered with transparent film.

Making a master screen Print Gocco screens are constructed of a cardboard frame sandwiched between a thin thermoplastic sheet and a perforated mesh. Artwork is prepared on a card in carbon-based medium. To produce a master screen, the user places their original card underneath the mesh. Flash bulbs are inserted into the lamp housing and positioned over the artwork. When the flashbulbs fire, the heat from these bulbs is absorbed by the carbon, melting minute holes in the thermoplastic sheet where direct contact with carbon is made, permanently inscribing the original art into the screen and forming a stencil: the finished master screen. This screen is then immediately ready for use.

Applying ink and printing With the master screen created, the user can apply ink to its surface. This ink is pushed through the screen to create prints. Unlike in screen printing, the ink is stamped onto the printing medium, rather than being squeegeed across it. This method allows the user to apply different colors of ink in different areas of the screen to produce a multi-color printed image. Alternatively, the user can create multiple master screens for different colors. Once the master screen are prepared and ink applied, the user can begin printing. Cards are inserted onto a pad beneath the master screen. By pushing down on the Print Gocco unit, the inked master screen could then be stamped onto many cards, one at a time.

Decline and discontinuation As personal computers and email became increasingly popular throughout the 1990s, the Japanese market for physical New Year's postcards saw considerable loss. In December 2005, Riso Kagaku Corporation announced it would end production of the Print Gocco system due to low sales. A spokesperson for the company stated that "[Print Gocco] sales were essentially a rounding error to a multinational with revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars." Riso Kagaku Corporation would continue to manufacture Print Gocco screens, inks and other supplies for the system. In the states, an Internet campaign was started under the domain savegocco.com to find a new home for the product. As of June 2007, Riso Kagaku Corporation announced increased interest in Print Gocco in Japan, and had resumed production of several lines of Print Gocco units and they were available in Japan and through limited import retail stores in the United States. Despite this interest, sales did not recover. On May 30, 2008, Riso Kagaku Corporation announced that it would stop manufacturing and shipping Print Gocco printers in June 2008. Sales had plummeted, dwindling to a mere one percent of their peak volume in the 1990s. It blamed the sharp decline in demand for its printers on the increase in use of home printers. It was to continue producing consumable supplies for the printers. On December 28, 2012, Riso Kagaku Corporation announced that due to declining sales of Print Gocco supplies, it would permanently discontinue all manufacturing related to Print Gocco.

See also Risograph Screen printing Mimeograph machine

References

External links Original Print Gocco Patent "Gocco photopool". Flickr. Riso Gocco Screen Printing Demo

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Print Gocco

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Print Gocco claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Print Gocco before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Print Gocco ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Print Gocco

In research: Print Gocco appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Print Gocco in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Print Gocco is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Japanese inventions, Printmaking, Products introduced in 1977, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Print Gocco outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Print Gocco in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Print Gocco means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Print Gocco out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Print Gocco in simple terms?

Why does Print Gocco matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Print Gocco?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Print Gocco.