4 ms·

The documentary of the same name, which chronicles the last ever hot metal typeset edition of the New York Times, is fascinating and I highly recommend it. It'

The documentary of the same name, which chronicles the last ever hot metal typeset edition of the New York Times, is fascinating and I highly recommend it. It's 30 minutes and you can watch it for free on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/127605643 https://vimeo.com/127605643

ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
I did not think about the fact that lines were set in molten lead before! Did typesetters experience health issues from this?
- jameshart 5y ago
  Yes - I’d heard of ‘hot metal printing’ for years before I actually saw a linotype in action and realized how literal it was. A linotype machine literally molds lead slugs into a ‘line o’ type’ then stacks them up to make a printable plate. It’s hot when it comes out because it was molten a moment earlier. And by lining up those plates next to one another you get columns. Newspaper layouts just naturally fall out of the capabilities of the technology. So much of what we take for granted in computer typography has direct lineage to mechanical linotype concepts - all web developers should have an understanding of how linotypes worked because the machine’s function defines the form of so much of what we expect of typographical layout.
tempodox 5y ago
The same 1978 documentary on YouTube, without a need for logging in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  It should be noted that this version has considerably poorer video quality.
  - tempodox 5y ago
    Thanks for noting this. I couldn't compare since I have no Vimeo account.
kingcharles 5y ago
Oh lord, the computerized solution still results in dozens of men having to cut out the computer print-outs with an xacto and glue them onto the pages by hand. WTF. All the technology they had in those roomfuls of computers and no-one had yet written the software to lay out the page too.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  OK but it's 1978. The processing power just wasn't there yet for actual page layout.
stolenmerch 5y ago
They very briefly mention deaf printers using sign language. I had no idea being a printer was common for deaf people. https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/the-washington-post-recognizes-former-deaf-printers https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/the-washington-post-recognize...
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  I think it was a practical decision. The room was so loud that even if you could hear normally you wouldn't be able to hear someone talking anyway.
echoradio 5y ago
I discovered a couple personally fascinating things stemming this documentary. According to the film, the last paper published with hot type was July 2 — my grandfather’s birthday. He was an avid reader of the New York Times and loved doing the Sunday crosswords — in ink! In sharing the fun coincidence about the date of the last typeset paper with my mom, I learned one of my grandfather’s uncles worked at the New York Times doing the exact typesetting seen in the documentary. He retired in 1968, though, so never saw the transition shown in the film. It gives pause to think of the front-page headlines he may have been involved in preparing (i.e. Pearl Harbor, JFK, etc.). I’ve worked on the web for 25 years. I wonder what my (great-great) uncle would think of digital publishing. :)
lqet 5y ago
The Linotype machine has become a kind of obsession for me. It is dizzying to think about the impact this machine had on the entire media landscape of the last 130 years. Not only did it allow for regular newspapers that were longer than a few pages, it also dramatically decreased the cost of both newspapers, books and magazines. In a way, an entire century stands on the shoulders of this machine, invented by a single man (Ottmar Mergenthaler) who was obsessed with it to an unhealthy point: > One of Mergenthaler’s greatest setbacks was that he could not stop inventing. He constantly wanted to improve upon the machine. This made investors angry because they wanted to ship the machines and make money right away, but Mergenthaler kept coming up with new ideas—delaying the shipping process. A publisher of the New York Tribune, named Whitelaw Reid, tried to make money fast off of Mergenthaler’s invention. He began to criticize the Linotype design, in hopes that the stock price would decline so that he could buy more and take complete control of the devices. This put a lot of pressure on Mergenthaler, who was already a perfectionist and worked late into the night. Eventually, Mergenthaler’s health began to suffer and he died of Tuberculosis by age 44. His premature death meant that he never lived to see the success of his Linotype invention [0] But it is also the technical aspects of the machine that are so fascinating: the bucket sort mechanism for the matrices used a 7-bit code for each character, encoded in the matrix teeth [1]. The machine supported text justification in a completely mechanical way. There are just so many small engineering gems in this machine, and at the end it prints out a cast letter mold. All that in a mechanical machine that fits into the corner of an office. Mergenthaler was the Gutenberg of the 19th century. Unfortunately, almost nobody knows his name. [0] https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/from-tablet-to-tablet/final-projects/the-invention-of-the-linotype-machine-jienne-alhaideri-13 https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/from-tablet-to-tablet/f... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Linotype_distributor_rail_coding.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Linotype...
- Symbiote 5y ago
  > a mechanical machine that fits into the corner of an office. Could these machines be used in an office? I watched the documentary mostly to see how they were used, and it looked much more like an artisan's workshop -- fairly noisy, hot type metal (mostly lead) in the machine, hammering the final page flat.
gpvos 5y ago
I'm getting "Video is not rated. Log in to watch."
- lurtbancaster 5y ago
  Use yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases yt-dlp https://vimeo.com/127605643 The film is also available on the Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu Cheers :)

ulrikrasmussen 5y ago

I did not think about the fact that lines were set in molten lead before! Did typesetters experience health issues from this?

jameshart 5y ago
Yes - I’d heard of ‘hot metal printing’ for years before I actually saw a linotype in action and realized how literal it was. A linotype machine literally molds lead slugs into a ‘line o’ type’ then stacks them up to make a printable plate. It’s hot when it comes out because it was molten a moment earlier. And by lining up those plates next to one another you get columns. Newspaper layouts just naturally fall out of the capabilities of the technology. So much of what we take for granted in computer typography has direct lineage to mechanical linotype concepts - all web developers should have an understanding of how linotypes worked because the machine’s function defines the form of so much of what we expect of typographical layout.

tempodox 5y ago

The same 1978 documentary on YouTube, without a need for logging in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MGjFKs9bnU

LeoPanthera 5y ago
It should be noted that this version has considerably poorer video quality.
- tempodox 5y ago
  Thanks for noting this. I couldn't compare since I have no Vimeo account.

kingcharles 5y ago

Oh lord, the computerized solution still results in dozens of men having to cut out the computer print-outs with an xacto and glue them onto the pages by hand. WTF. All the technology they had in those roomfuls of computers and no-one had yet written the software to lay out the page too.

LeoPanthera 5y ago
OK but it's 1978. The processing power just wasn't there yet for actual page layout.

stolenmerch 5y ago

They very briefly mention deaf printers using sign language. I had no idea being a printer was common for deaf people. https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/the-washington-post-recognizes-former-deaf-printers https://www.dailymoth.com/blog/the-washington-post-recognize...

LeoPanthera 5y ago
I think it was a practical decision. The room was so loud that even if you could hear normally you wouldn't be able to hear someone talking anyway.

echoradio 5y ago

I discovered a couple personally fascinating things stemming this documentary. According to the film, the last paper published with hot type was July 2 — my grandfather’s birthday. He was an avid reader of the New York Times and loved doing the Sunday crosswords — in ink! In sharing the fun coincidence about the date of the last typeset paper with my mom, I learned one of my grandfather’s uncles worked at the New York Times doing the exact typesetting seen in the documentary. He retired in 1968, though, so never saw the transition shown in the film. It gives pause to think of the front-page headlines he may have been involved in preparing (i.e. Pearl Harbor, JFK, etc.). I’ve worked on the web for 25 years. I wonder what my (great-great) uncle would think of digital publishing. :)

lqet 5y ago

The Linotype machine has become a kind of obsession for me. It is dizzying to think about the impact this machine had on the entire media landscape of the last 130 years. Not only did it allow for regular newspapers that were longer than a few pages, it also dramatically decreased the cost of both newspapers, books and magazines. In a way, an entire century stands on the shoulders of this machine, invented by a single man (Ottmar Mergenthaler) who was obsessed with it to an unhealthy point: > One of Mergenthaler’s greatest setbacks was that he could not stop inventing. He constantly wanted to improve upon the machine. This made investors angry because they wanted to ship the machines and make money right away, but Mergenthaler kept coming up with new ideas—delaying the shipping process. A publisher of the New York Tribune, named Whitelaw Reid, tried to make money fast off of Mergenthaler’s invention. He began to criticize the Linotype design, in hopes that the stock price would decline so that he could buy more and take complete control of the devices. This put a lot of pressure on Mergenthaler, who was already a perfectionist and worked late into the night. Eventually, Mergenthaler’s health began to suffer and he died of Tuberculosis by age 44. His premature death meant that he never lived to see the success of his Linotype invention [0] But it is also the technical aspects of the machine that are so fascinating: the bucket sort mechanism for the matrices used a 7-bit code for each character, encoded in the matrix teeth [1]. The machine supported text justification in a completely mechanical way. There are just so many small engineering gems in this machine, and at the end it prints out a cast letter mold. All that in a mechanical machine that fits into the corner of an office. Mergenthaler was the Gutenberg of the 19th century. Unfortunately, almost nobody knows his name. [0] https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/from-tablet-to-tablet/final-projects/the-invention-of-the-linotype-machine-jienne-alhaideri-13 https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/from-tablet-to-tablet/f... [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Linotype_distributor_rail_coding.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Linotype...

Symbiote 5y ago
> a mechanical machine that fits into the corner of an office. Could these machines be used in an office? I watched the documentary mostly to see how they were used, and it looked much more like an artisan's workshop -- fairly noisy, hot type metal (mostly lead) in the machine, hammering the final page flat.

gpvos 5y ago

I'm getting "Video is not rated. Log in to watch."

lurtbancaster 5y ago
Use yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases yt-dlp https://vimeo.com/127605643 The film is also available on the Internet Archive - https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu Cheers :)