How mechanical typesetting works (Intertype, Linotype, Hot Metal)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2011
- How mechanical typesetting works.
This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives
Producer: Salesian Vocational and Technical Schools, Italy
Sponsor: Salesian Vocational and Technical Schools, Italy
Audio/Visual: Sd, B&W
Keywords: Communication: Typesetting; Occupations: Printing
Creative Commons license: Public Domain
Source: - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Here from the Well There's Your Problem podcast, to appreciate this lovely machine
Same here! It's pretty fantastic.
Im here 3 years later for the same reason...!
I own two of these wonderful machines and have them on display in my Print Shop Museum in Ohio. They revolutionized the newspaper business for my parents and grandparents. They are truly an engineering wonder.
Oh my goodness, I'd love to come visit and see them!
Whooooa. The way the justification works (making each line exactly as wide as the other, regardless of the length of the words) is mindblowing.
17:04 YES! I heard a slide whistle in my head as the space band wedges were driven upward. This machine is incredible.
To come up with the idea, then design it and make it work is more than just mindblowing. At over 100 years ago, people were still brilliant with their thinking. What needs to be shown next, is the actual printing operation. The printing presses that produced the papers from these castings are just as much a marvel as the Linotype. I remember as a paperboy in the 70s, I used to go and watch the Linotype guys making these up and also the printing press. Such wonderful technology and engineering.
I've got an Intertype with 30 magazines of serif/sans serif faces, a pallet of typemetal and gas fired crucible. My letterpress school is Mirror City Letterpress in Oamaru NZ. Thanks for loading this - much better than the 1929 manual Ive got...
I have a Linotype machine that produced a remarkable newspaper (Rainy Lake Chronicle) in the tiny town of Ranier Mn. I am hoping to see it displayed in a new boutique distillery-hotel as a historic artifact, a reminder of the complexity of the means of communicating to the masses. This film shows the incredible design and craftsmanship of a machine built more than 100 years ago that in huge way has made the digital era possible.
Most people less than born after 1970 have no idea of the importance of this process that has been superseded by instantaneous global communication.
It must have been marvellous to work on such a newspaper. I worked a linotype for twenty years on the Scottish Daily Express, this was a paper in Scotland that in the 60s and 70s sold 600,000 copies every day. A great bit of engineering.
When I was a child, we visited a large newspaper and watched the operators of the Linotype machines. However, the mechanical workings were never explained. I am astounded at the complexity of this marvelous machine! What a beautiful piece of engineering! Thank for posting!
It doesn't matter how old this film is, this is one of the best, piece by piece, explanations about how the Linotype works. Fantastic documentary / training film.
No kidding. Any of these old, instructional films were so well made and explained.
Please remember when setting type: There is only one space between a period and the start of a new sentence and no space on either side of a virgule except when separating lines of music lyrics being set on one line. Also, watch your overuse of commas and insert hyphens into the phrase "piece-by-piece."
The precision of manufacture of this machine is incredible. Apart from the thermostat, there is not a single electrical control. Everything is done mechanically. I was wondering how the slugs got back to the correct tracks. That pin mechanism is astonishing.
came across two huge 1907 Linotype machines in abandoned warehouse. thanks for this vid.
AWESOME! My great grandparents met at the News American in Baltimore...He was a typesetter and ran a Linotype, she was a proof reader! I am in the printing industry myself, so this was really a treat!
And what most people don’t know is that the Linotype was invented (and initially manufactured) in Baltimore! (Fun fact: years ago, I almost rented an apartment in the carriage house of Ottmar Mergenthaler’s house in Bolton Hill.)
I am speechless. What an unbelievably gorgeous piece of engineering! Such genius a marvel. Thanks for uploading.
No kidding! Think about how amazing that was for it's time? I mean, being able to hold for sections of a font at one time. That's cool! Darn cool!
Thanks for the video. I work layout design for a newspaper and find myself interested in how my predecessors had to do the job. I think university journalism classes should teach more of the history of the profession.
Makes me sad thinking about how many of these amazing machines have simply melted away...
To manufacture bombs and other military equipment for the "war efforts" no doubt?
@@DandyDon1 Nah, they were in active use during the wars. These machines were in widespread use through the 1970s. Only then did phototypesetting, and later computers, take over.
This thing is blowing my mind. I had no idea this is how typesetting used to work. I never even thought about what came between manual typesetting and digital typesetting, even though it's very obvious that there had to be something to bridge the cap there. Thanks for the video! (Also yes I was brought here by Well There's Your Problem)
LOL and I thought I was smart. Some guy actually designed this--that is mind bending. Amazing.
For those who were asking, the piece at the beginning is from the second movement of "L'inverno" which is the fourth of The Four Seasons concerti by Antonio Vivaldi.
This is an extremely well-done instructional film. I hadn't even heard of the Linotype until I ran across "etaoin shrdlu" on Wikipedia a few years ago, and since have found it quite interesting. A good deal of its functioning I could surmise through a general understanding of mechanical things (the binary function of the matrix sorting mechanism for example), but it's neat to see the finer details and have things cleared up (such as how and when the spacebands are adjusted to justify the line and how they're separated out from the matrices after casting, and the specifics of the casting process). Plus some things I didn't realize, such as having several magazines loaded and quickly swappable, and the point of the four separate molds being they can be set up for different column widths and line heights, allowing switching between several often-used fonts, points and column widths (presumably) quickly.
This is a great videp etaoin shrdlu great video!
Gee! How is it possible to invent all these mind-melting mechanisms?! Ottmar Mergenthaler was a real genius.
Le Bublerkin he went stark raving mad.
@@velcrobroadcasting Ummm… not from anything I’ve read.
@@velcrobroadcasting what happened? Passed from tuberculosis Wikipedia say at least, just learning of him 🤔
This video brings back a lot of memories for me because I was a Salesian Brother in New Jersey back in the 60's. The video was created by Fr. Ernest Giovanni, who I knew also. Watching the video today gives me more appreciation of the complexity of the linotype machine, that I took for granted so many years ago.
Thank you for the little peek behind the curtain! Do you happen to know the year this documentary was made? Unfortunately the video description doesn't have it.
Worked as a Linotype Operator from 1961 until its demise 1987. Worked in Manchester England on various newspapers ie Guardian, The People, Daily Star and Daily Express. I must add the Model 48 Linotype hardly ever broke down even with the rather complicated movements. Goodbye Old Friend
This was a truly fascinating documentary! I had no idea such an absurdly complex machine was ever employed in the printmaking process (then again, I didn't really know anything about it to begin with, still) I think this beats "How it's Made" by far. Thanks.
morgenthaler was a genius engineer who made this complicated machine step by step when the other engineers had failed to make a practical machine
This is a gem. Without this the history and documentation of an era of publishing would be lost.
An underrated invention if I ever saw one
Learning the origins of these typographical terms and techniques can help one's understanding of modern typography. This is a great video for developing such an understanding. Very thorough and informative. Thanks for sharing.
I always wondered what came between typesetting by hand and modern printing-but never would I have expected the topic to be this fascinating! I'm amazed by the complexity of these machines! Thank you very much for uploading this.
Astonishing. Pure genius in design and build.
Worked with one of these back in the 1970s when I was at school, in the school print works. Fabulous piece of mechanical engineering, beautiful to work with.
The way this guy pronounces 'matrixes' makes it sound like 'mattresses' so I'm like - oh so that's where the term "put the paper to bed" must come from...
This is next-level mechanical engineering, fascinating.
The type sat on the "bed" of the printing press, thus "putting the paper to bed", then all the composing staff left for a hotel across the road from the newspaper office.
The plural of “matrix” is “matrices”, though indeed I would pronounce it as “may-tris-ees”, not “matt-ris-ees”. (Matrixes is another accepted, but less common, plural.)
Yo fui muchos años linotipista y conozco muy bien esta máquina que era una maravilla. Ahora es mucho más rápido el resultado de lo que haces y más fácil de realizar pero las linotypias tenían algo de magia en los años 70. Un saludo.
This is such a wonderful resource, thank you for uploading! Absolutely gobsmacked at this engineering
I used to fix coin wrappers. These were German built. The whole machine had a very simple 6 window encoder, and a couple cam assemblies. My greatest satisfaction was watching the machine roll a full fed bag of quarters and not jam. There is cadence to the machine running that sometimes sounded like “whoop there it is”. Lol
That's some fine piece of engineering there. Hope Ottmar Mergenthaler got some kind of award for that. at least a thank you.
He did receive various awards, but all posthumously as far as I know. Arguably the highest praise was from Thomas Edison, who referred to it as the “eighth wonder of the world”.
My Dad had a typesetting company back in the 70's-90's, I remember as a kid going there and seeing 5 Linotypes all chattering away, even then it was amazing to me! Saying that he did have me cleaning the molten lead off space bands with graphite and a razor blade as something to do, as a 12yr old I'm not sure I enjoyed that bit!😄
I was a linotype operator for the Scottish Daily Express. They were marvellous machines and very reliable. The days of real newspaper production.
And I was thrilled with the, then state of the art in 1985, CompuGraphic 8200 Typesetter!
I have still to see a modern documentary film, with cgi, computer simulations and all those whistles and bells, to be that clear explaining such a complex system
Today's society hates technology. Only women and fuckboys are valued. Not tech minded men with a cold and calm rational voice.
@@Bvic3 You do not have a rational voice, and today's society does value technology. I am sure that the society you invented in your head to get angry about does not.
It would be interesting to see a documentary like this on something cutting-edge and automated, like Ginkgo Bioworks' genetic "foundries"
@@GyroCoder Compare Europe, the US and China. Europe hates technology and science, in the US software is the only technology that is still valued but even there it's "AI research is evil", in China it's wonderful.
Just compare how humanities intellectual talk about science and technology. XIX century Europe had very positive discourses. Since the 60s and the moral defeat of marxism, science and technology mean capitalist oppression+pollution and is hated in the culture as culture is made by intellectuals and most intellectuals are marxists.
It's stunning when you learn Chinese and you see how 100% of discourse about technology is positive. In Europe, you'll never see a documentary that is pro technology. It's always fear mongering. It's not a surprise that the West is collapsing and China is rising. They are like XIXth century Europe, nearly complete freedom to innovate and a culture that applaudes it. And scientists are sexually valued too by the way, unlike in the West where the media ridicules scientists and engineers as nerds who can't get laid while fags are cool.
@@jslavertu Of course I'm bitter. Europe is collapsing while people are partying.
Thank you for posting the movie, covers everything from publishing a childs book to a now tabloid newspaper.
Thank you so much for uploading this video. I never thought this video was even exist.
The marvel of engineering.
Simply amazing & fantastic piece of machine.
So glad we got rid of those pesky human typeset operators, and got the Automatic Teletype! 20,000 characters (or lines?) per hour? Holy Mackerel!
For anyone interested, the hole-punch system for the teletype machine was a conceptual pre-curser to computer programming, itself. Those physical ribbon papers, with holes, inspired several people in several industries to develop code routines. With voltage, current, and magnets- instead of cams/shafts/sprockets, paper, and holes.
Amazing vid, thank you for discovering it and uploading it. I will remember this for a long time.
The narrator's English is so close to being perfect, and then, every few minutes, something comes along and spoils things for him.
Wow. This is machine porn, absolutley stellar. I once was imprisoned and worked in their printing shop, I worked a Heidelberger press that was absloute filth when I started at it.
One day I took the colour distribution rollers apart to clean, I put them on the bench as I took em out.
My lovely co workers came and changed the order, I didn´t note it so I had to go by feel. Took me some time but I got them all in order back in. That was important, if wrong the coulour gets distributed uneven.
But I was lucky, the boss checked with a feeler gauge- all good.
I was happy, had learned something and a clean machine together with some respect ´cause I made it.
Amazing engineering. This device must have cost the equivalent of millions to buy. And then the training of operators and repairmen? Wow, just wow.
They cost the equivalent of around $100,000 apiece. Large newspapers would have dozens and dozens of them. (The Baltimore Sun, the paper of the place where the Linotype was invented and initially built, had 80 of them, and the New York Times, the paper of the city where the Linotype company would ultimately be based and most machines made, had over 100.)
Imagine if you told Ernesto Giovanni way back in the day that someday there would be 92,000 people watching this on a computer the size of a book. I bet he'd be like wow.
Fabulous documentary! Thanks.
Thank you! Most appreciated!
Thank you, mrpete222, Very interesting. Must have been quite the marvel back then.
Thanks everyone for your wonderful comments, If you want too learn more about these great machines you should check out "Linotype the Film"
If i find more old videos about this machine or others like it I will surely upload it. Thanks :D
excelente video yo aprendi a utilizarlo hace mas de 25 años me trae muchos recuerdos del inicio de las imprentas en Guatemala!!!! aunque los periodicos desde los años 50 ya los tenian,,,, saludos....
What a glorious machine, wow!
I ran intertype in 1979 in São Paulo. Take love from Brasil from Lula too ! 🚩🇧🇷
Something anachronistic about a B/W narrated film talking about automation. At the end when the hole punch coded ribbons. No luddites talking about losing jobs.
OMG The complexity of this machine. It must have required repair every 30 seconds. And making and assembling all of those parts must have been torture. A big machine that had to be made and assembled with the precision of a mechanical watch.
These machines were rather quite robust and prone to few breakdowns if maintained properly. They are in fact like a fine watch.
لي كل الفخر ان أكون من أمهر العاملين على ماكنة اللاينوتايب من ناحية السرعة والدقة
We had two linotypes in the 60,s l remember going to Birmingham Mail newspaper. Thay had a room full of linotypes at least 20. There was a central raised office they would give the typesetter one paragraph he would set it run back get another paragraph not in sequence. The article would be set in minutes As you could imagine it did not always work.
My father made his entire living working that machine.
wow - I had a smattering knowledge of how mechanical typesetting worked but no clue as to how much I Didn't know !!! Now I understand the expression Hot Off The Press....And Thank you for the upload !
@DigiPixDOTinfo These machines too me are one of the greatest marvels of the past 200 years, Without it technology would have never be where it is today.
This Video was originally in two parts since it was too big too fit on one 16mm film spool, So i edited it together... can you tell where the splice is ... ?
@SketchyDetails If you really like these old Machines and the History behind them you should check out "Linotype: The Film"
thank you for uploading the video. love these types of films. is there any info on the music at the beginning.
The second movement (Largo) of "Winter" by Vivaldi.
Am I the only one that pictures Martin Molin and his next Marble Machine casting new marbles from molten steel while it plays?
Saludos, colega Gernán Sanz Moreno. Yo, también Linotipista, de El Salvador. Pablo A H
The ending completes Franklin.
Well the only other electrical controls I can think of is the power for the ain drive 1/2 HP motor, the optional water/air pump to cool the mold wheel, and the optional paper tape input.
On the only linotype machine that I have seen the electric motor was a very customized Emerson Electric motor. I don't recall any electrical controls - appeared all mechanical.
I use to run one of these.
It's a piece of history :-D
I don't think the video answered it (but maybe I missed it) but since the commentator said european languages, how does it handle the accented letters (if you have the answer obviously, no need to go in a hunt if you don't know of the top of your head, I'll do it instead)
Holy moly
Does anyone know what the music at the beginning is? Sounds familiar to me, but I can't remember. Thx.
The second movement (Largo) of "Winter" by Vivaldi.
@thisisftg Between 17:50 and 17:51.
The genius of the mind was limited only by technology. Imagine these people were given all resources they need to fly to the Moon.
Please some body tell me the music on the beginning .....thanks in advance!
The second movement (Largo) of "Winter" by Vivaldi.
But how did they print graphics, like photos and cartoons, since they wouldn't have had matrices for them?
Line art and photographs were engraved on a photoengraver using chemicals to etch the image into a block of metal. Then they were placed in the chase and locked up with the type to produce a mat, which was then placed in a casting box, against which molten lead was poured to produce a rather heavy rotary plate for high-speed latterpress printing.
@lohphat Whats sad is how fast our history is simply being sold for scrap metal :-/
On the topic of history disappearing - I recall seeing the old wire looms at the Gilbert and Bennett wire factory in Georgetown, CT - back around 1990 - they were in an old post & beam New England factory building and a jackshaft ran the length of the section of the building where the looms were and connected to them via leather belts. The plant electrician, Brian, showed me how the operated. They used an electrical control system that ran off an old plating MG set that was mounted up near ceiling - it generated 12 VDC and ran all these little electromagnets on each loom that looked just like telegraph sounder magnets. These would activate pieces of the loom in the proper sequence. Fascinating equipment.
As I understand, some of this was sold to China to try and manufacture the wire screens there - don't know how the turned out. The rest was scrapped. Last I know the buildings were mostly unused.
By the way - parts of the move "Other People's Money" was filmed there.
Is it just me or does the narrator in this video sound like the voice of King Friday on Mister Roger's Neighborhood? Honest question.
And I thought Teletype machines were complicated...
I'm an engineer, but this is simply dumbfounding.
It's okay, everyone, no need to worry about the molten lead, as there's asbestos insulation around it!
1920 microsoft word!
Some people should repair, restore, and to operate these machines. When the shtf, whoever has them rules the world!