[ale] [OT] IT Nostalgia

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

Hi all,

I was out at Zaxby's for supper tonight.  If you've been there, you know 
they have all sorts of old artifacts hanging on the wall.  One thing 
they had was a newspaper page from 1910.  It was fascinating.  What was 
fascinating to me was not what was printed on the page.  What was 
fascinating was the way it would have been printed at the time.  It had 
about 12 or so columns about an inch or so wide.  Each column had many 
dozens of tiny lines of characters in the range of 7 or 8 points.  I 
started thinking about what it took to get that page printed.  In 1910, 
doing this was quite a feat of engineering.  (Still is today, but 
engineering of a different style.)

Some of you will probably know the answer to this without googling it.  
Others may not.

Do you know how you would typeset a newspaper in 1860?  How about 1900?  
It changed dramatically around that time.

Now, while I wasn't here in 1860 or 1900, I've done some typesetting 
around 1975 or so the same way they did back then.  About that time, I 
persuaded my Dad to help me go into business for myself.  We found a 
classified ad for someone who was selling a rubber stamp making kit.  I 
think it cost $ 400 or so, but don't remember for sure.  It contained a 
number of trays of individual pieces of metal molded in small rectangles 
about an inch tall and maybe 1/8" wide and deep.  On each piece of 
metal, there was a letter, a typeface.

In order to build the mold for a rubber stamp, I had to LITERALLY 
typeset each letter in a frame, in reverse order, along with spacing and 
punctuation, in order to create each line of type that would go on the 
rubber stamp.  After stacking up all the lines in the frame, I would 
clamp it down, proofread it in a mirror, heat it, then create a reverse 
mold by pressing a piece of hard plastic into the typefaces.  After 
that, I would press rubber into the mold to create the rubber stamp.  If 
I had wanted to do printing with this process, I would have put the 
frame in a letterpress press, inked it, and pressed paper onto the 
typefaces.  This was painstaking work.

See this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typesetting

See the section on manual typesetting.

Here's a picture of a type frame with type in it similar to what I had.:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Metal_movable_type.jpg

In 1860, as far as I know, they would have had to manually set up EVERY 
character of EVERY column of EVERY newspaper page in exactly this way.

In 1884, this radically changed, because the LINOTYPE machine was invented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linotype-vorne-deutsches-museum-annotated.jpg

I saw one of these at a print shop once, and was quite jealous since I 
didn't have one to make stamps with.  It's a monster of a machine, an 
incredibly complex mechanical typesetting system that you can hardly 
believe works at all.  Keep in mind, we're talking 1884.  There are no 
computers.  No electronics.  This is ELECTROMECHANICAL!

Using a linotype machine, an operator sits down at a keyboard and types 
a line of text.  As he / she hits each key, a mechanism selects a 
typeface MOLD from a bank of molds.  That mold template is carried 
through a conveyor system and automatically stacked in a frame.  When 
the operator hits the LINE END (or whatever) key, the entire stack of 
molds is carried to a metal casting section where MOLTEN METAL is poured 
into the stack.  Within a few seconds, a SLUG appears in the output 
tray.  The SLUG is a metal casting of the entire LINE of typefaces.  
After casting, the machine disassembles the frame of typeface molds and 
puts them back into their storage areas.  Now, the machine is ready for 
the operator to create another line of text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linotype_matrices.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linotype_Zeilenblock_Frontansicht.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linotype_Zeilenblock_Seitenansicht.jpg

This is a PHENOMENAL example of mechanical engineering.

All the newspaper layout team has to do is take all these slugs, in 
order, and stack them up in columns, stack the columns side by side, 
then run them through a press for each page of the newspaper.

This is, very likely, how the page I saw was printed.

So, what's the point?  I am not normally nostalgic.  I am NOT a history 
buff.  I am very glad I was born after the 19th century.  I do NOT which 
to go back to the old, and primitive, methods of doing things.  I am 
infinitely glad that I can TYPESET this letter and DELIVER it without 
involving either the post office or any molten metal.

But, it just seems like some of the magic is gone.  It seems like some 
of the feats they did back then, with the resources they had, are even 
more magnificent than what we can (or do) do now.  I don't really know 
how to say it.  Maybe it's the craftsman versus factory concept.  I 
don't know.  But, that newspaper just made me start thinking about these 
things.

By the way, if you want to find out some interesting things about 
logistics, look at the way a shipping port or railway switching yard 
worked back then.  They still had to deal with logistics.  They still 
had to track hundreds or thousands of orders per day.  They still had to 
stack up railroad freight cars or shipping containers in order and get 
them to the right place.  Did they have information technology?  You 
better believe it.  It was slower, more primitive, less efficient, less 
flexible, more expensive per unit of work, etc.

But you can darn well bet they had it.

Also, check out Enigma, the story of the British code breakers in WW II.

http://www.amazon.com/Enigma-Dougray-Scott/dp/B00006FD9P/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361668964&sr=8-1&keywords=enigma+dvd

Sincerely,

Ron


-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
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Ron Frazier
770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT techstarship.com