First ELPHY

In 1988 Raith launched the first ELPHY hardware/software system onto the market; an “electronic pencil” that could complement the imaging functionality of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a writing component. ELPHY rapidly positioned itself as an alternative to the vector-scan addressing devices which were used for writing on the smallest possible surfaces at the time – but which were also very expensive to buy, so many universities simply could not afford these systems.