TeleType Co., Inc. is a privately held company in the United States, specialized in developing software for GPS devices. It was founded in 1981, under the name TeleTypesetting Company and it is based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company's product line includes automotive and commercial GPS navigation systems and other products including GPS receivers and tracking units. It develops and sells the WorldNav software for PC and Windows CE, tools for converting third party maps into WorldNav maps, an SDK and an API that allow the customization of the WorldNav application. TeleType Co. also offers consultancy services for those interested in acquiring and adapting the source code of their software products.
History
The early years
The company was founded in 1981, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, under the name TeleTypesetting Company Inc., by Edward Friedman, a Licensed Professional Engineer, and Marleen Winer, an alumnus of the University of Maryland, holding a B.S. in Geography and a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Michigan. Ed Friedman was born in Odesa, Ukraine and graduated from the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys (currently the National University of Science and Technology) with a B.S. in Transportation Engineering. He completed his studies in the U.S. with a Master of Science in Engineering at the Michigan State University and a M.S. in Financial Management at the Polytechnic Institute. (currently New York University), completed requirements for Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at University of Michigan
Sensing that the electronics industry was in its infancy and poised to expand, the two founders established the company in 1981, initially operating in the phototypesetting industry. TeleTypesetting was one of the first companies to produce a hardware and software interface between personal computers such as the Apple II and IBM PS/2 and numerous models of phototypesetting machines such as the Compugraphic Compuwriter and CompEdit, and Varityper EPICS, Comp/Set and Comp/Edit. TeleTypesetting Co. created a package called MicroSetter, composed of a desk accessory, cables, conversion software, and connectivity software, which provided computers equipped with it the capability to connect to phototypesetting machines. MicroSetter was compatible with numerous desktop publishing applications such as Ready,Set,Go, Page Maker, Microsoft Word, MacWrite, and MacDraw. Use of personal computers took advantage of functions such as spell checking and printing on plain paper prior to printing on expensive phototypesetting paper which could not easily be corrected after the photographic process was completed thereby saving time and expense while providing more accurate results. From the MicroSetter product line evolved the T-Script PostScript interpreter (also referred to in the industry as a Raster image processor) which converted output from popular PostScript based WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) programs such as PageMaker, Microsoft Word and MacWrite to non PostScript printers which were much more economical at the time. This provided the user the ability to see the document on the screen as it would appear on the printer.
Furthering innovation
Expanding on its expertise of system integration, the company applied its knowledge to a new industry producing "Books that Remember". Taking advantage of the emerging personal digital assistant (PDA) capabilities the company pushed the envelope of development to produce a series of digital books that could be used in interactive ways based on the computing power of the devices. It published applications designed for Apple's series of PDAs, the Newton. This included Digital Gourmet, a cooking book application aimed at professional chefs, built on the HyperCard programming environment. The application made use of HyperCard's capabilities in an innovative way, calculating the nutritional values of the prepared foods based on the used ingredients. Since 2003, the application has been released to the community as a freeware.