Electronic multimachine operating system for remotely controlling printing machines

Claim 1

A combination comprising a plurality of printing machines and an operation system for operating said plurality of printing machines, at least one of said machines having machine characteristics that are different from the machine characteristics of the remaining machines, said operating system including a central ink density measuring installation for measuring ink density data of a printed product; at least one viewing screen terminal associated with each respective one of said machines for showing said ink density data, at least one control desk coupled with each respective one of said printing machines, electrical coupling means for electrically coupling said ink density data from said measuring installation to said viewing screen terminal; and visual coupling means for visually coupling said ink density data from said viewing screen terminal to each said printing machine; assignment means for assigning a printed product to a respective one of said printing machines, said assignment means including at least one identification field on the printed product, and measuring means included in said central ink density measuring installation for measuring said identification field for automatically identifying said identification field; including a printing control strip printed on said printed product, said printing control strip including said at least one identification field measurable by said central ink density measuring installation; computing means and means responsive to said computing means for performing a positioning and a recognition procedure on said central ink density measuring installation for declaring said identification field as identifying an assignment of said printed product to said respective one of said printing machines; said electrical coupling means including a multi-data-channel transmitter, an output of said ink density measuring installation being connected to said multi-data-channel transmitter for transmitting said ink density data to said viewing screen terminals from said ink density measuring installation; and means for selectively assigning a channel of said multi-data-channel transmitter to each respective one of said printing machines.