Rosettes Distinguish YARC's Color Proofer for Epson Stylus Printers.

NEWBURY PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 25, 1998--YARC (OTC BB:YARC) today released a radical new Digital Color Proofer for the printing industry which gives the Epson Stylus 3000 professional inkjet printer the functionality of much more expensive conventional proofing systems.

"YARC can achieve an effective line ruling of 133 lines per inch using our advanced 'Irrational Adaptive Screening' (IAS) technology" said Dr. Karsten Jeppesen, YARC's Vice President of R&D, "YARC developed this advanced halftone screening process for squeezing extra resolution from imagesetters. IAS allows us to achieve 133 lpi from the Epson, which has a maximum resolution of only 1440x720 dpi, yet it preserves the Rosette structure and the gridded dot placement so essential for effective proofing."

"Print shops currently use two basic technologies for Proofing images prior to sending them to the presses" commented Matt Kavanagh, Digital Printing Specialist at D.O'Sullivan Print Supplies, Dublin, Ireland. "Traditional Cromalin or MatchPrint proofs use a photographic technique and tend to be very expensive. To save cost, many printers now use digital proofers such as the IRIS. But the IRIS is still expensive, costing upwards of $40,000"

Matt Kavanagh explained "Although there have been other attempts to turn the Epson printers into digital proofers they have used a screening technology called 'Stochastic Screening', which lays down dots on the page in a manner which bears no resemblance to the way that a printing press lays down the dots. This makes them almost useless in a print shop environment. If you cannot see the Rosette structure it is hard to detect potential defects in the printed image. For example, Moire and density related patterns may not show in the image from stochastic proofers, but only become evident after the first 10,000 copies have rolled off the press. This is not acceptable."

The Epson 3000 can print on sheets 17 by 22 inches in size, which is larger than the smaller IRIS machine and is quite adequate for almost all proofing jobs. For example, the Epson can image an entire newspaper page on one sheet.

YARC provides ColorSync ICC color profiles built into the proofer to simulate the color spaces of typical Newspaper and Magazine SWOP presses. These profiles are optimized for use with standard Epson media and inks. Custom ColorSync profiles, created using third party software packages, can also be loaded into the proofer.

The proofers use YARC's "Instant Print" interpreter technology. This allows the printer to start printing while the RIP is still RIPping. Once the file comes off the network the printer typically starts to print within a minute. There is no delay because no image files are spooled to the hard disk. As soon as the file is available from the network it is printed even as the RIP is still completing the processing.

For maximum productivity the queues can be chained, so that a job coming into the proofer will be automatically routed to the first available printer.

The Epson Proofer is derived from YARC's XP server, but uses a custom software system. It is multi-processing, using both Intel Pentium and PowerPC CPUs. One proofer can be configured to simultaneously drive up to three Epson printers. A PowerPC CPU with 128 or 256 megabytes of memory are dedicated to each printer, so that the performance is not degraded as the proofer is expanded. The hard disk is 4.3 gigabytes in size, with 3.1 gigabytes available to store user files.

Auto-switching for Windows, Mac, Unix and Novell networking is built in. The network hardware interface supports full 100 base T data rates. The server's network operating system is based on Linux.

YARC's OPI processor is a standard feature.

Pricing starts at $4995 for a basic single printer configuration. A fully loaded system to drive 3 simultaneous printers costs $12,495.

YARC announced its first Postscript RIP Systems for the Epson range of printers on 12 October 1998. The new Epson products were developed with technical assistance from the Epson Imaging Technology Center.

Rosettes, Moire, Halftone and other terms used in the printing industry are explained on the Internet at URL http://www.prepress.pps.com/mem/lib/ptr/screeningtr.html

Iris Graphics Inc is a wholly owned subsidiary of Scitex Corporation Ltd. Information about the IRIS proofers can be found on the Internet at: http://www.irisgraphics.com/v3_hpfrm.htm

"Cromalin" is a Registered Trademark of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company. Information about Cromalin can be found on the Internet at: http://www.dupont.com/proofing/products/cromalin.html

"Matchprint" is a trademark of 3M. MATCHPRINT is 3M's CMYK proofing system

Information on the Stylus Color 3000 can be found at the website of Epson America Inc http://www.epson.com/printer/inkjet/sty3000/

ColorSync information can be found at http://www.apple.com/colorsync/

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About YARC:

YARC Systems Corporation (OTC:BB YARC) designs and manufactures high performance systems for the personal computer and digital printing marketplaces. YARC has long been the acknowledged leader in Mac 3D Graphics multiprocessing technology. Since 1993, YARC has focused their expertise on optimizing Postscript interpretation.

YARC's XP Server is an open-architecture, Pentium-based, plug-and-play networked Postscript Color Print Server for Canon Laser Copiers and wide format printers from Epson, Hewlett Packard, Encad, CalComp, Mutoh, Graphtec, Roland, Summagraphics and Selex. Using the Intel ATX motherboard technology, it includes soft power-off and other energy-saving features.

YARC maintains a presence on the Internet at http://www.yarc.com/

Certain of the above statements may be forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. In such instances, actual results could differ materially as a result of a variety of factors, including competitive developments and risk factors listed from time to time in the Company's disclosure statements and/or SEC reports.

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Notes to Editors:

Raster Image Processor (RIP): a device that converts Postscript graphics and text into high-resolution images that can be output on film, paper, fabric and other media. RIPs can be (1) software; (2) hardware, and; (3) software with hardware components. The YARC XP is a type (3) RIP system.

Postscript: a software language that is widely used by graphics and digital printing applications.

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