When Philip Chen joined Xerox Corp. in 1967, only big companies could afford printers and scanners. Now retired and with several patents to his name, Chen developed the Xenon flash lamp printer, which he considers the “steam locomotive” of printers. He also designed an optical disc drive for the Library of Congress to store its card catalogue information, which became the predecessor of CD drives. Chen’s next big project was to come up with a low-cost image scanner (they typically cost $20,000 at that time) for a company in Taiwan called Microtek. Chen earned a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from S&T in 1965.
Share This Story
Spark a Memory?
Share your story! Fill out the form below to share your fondest memory or anecdote of S&T. If you'd prefer not typing, you can also share by phone at 833-646-3715 (833-Miner150).
Jack Ridley: a humanist among engineers
Jack Ridley, who won many teaching awards during his career, describes the circumstances he faced as a new...
Endurance was her middle name
The first woman to earn a degree from S&T, Eva Endurance Hirdler Greene, class of 1911, received the general science…
Quality U.
At the height of the total quality management (TQM) movement, organizations across the nation sought to win the Malcolm Baldrige…
First impressions: UM System President Mun Choi
Mun Choi, who has served as president of the University of Missouri System since 2017...
An out-of-this-world championship
How does a team go from worst to first in a matter of just a few years? Missouri S&T’s Mars…
Titanoboa – reptile king of the prehistoric rainforest
Sixty million years ago in the steamy prehistoric forests of what is now Colombia, there slithered a 50-foot, 2,500-pound reptile….