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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

by 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.
jameshart 5y ago
One of the things I love about linotype text justification is that it’s actually really a solution to a mechanical problem - the machine needs to make a complete line of text every time without leaving gaps at the end of the mold, and squeeze all the character blanks together tightly to prevent lead from squirting out - so driving wedges in between words to squeeze them together is a neat solution to that problem. That it has the side effect of creating that characteristic newspaper column justified aesthetic is a consequence of an engineering decision, not so much a deliberate design choice. Interesting article on this tech and its possible connection to our ongoing confusion about how many spaces go after a period: http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2014/01/two-spaces-old-typists-habit.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2014/01/two-spaces-old-typist... It’s not conclusive, but there is definitely something to this and the linotype’s mechanical justification that I think overall emphasizes how much what we think of as aesthetic judgements about what makes for good typography are actually just things we’ve grown used to from the technical limitations and operational choices made by people using particular technologies in the past.
cafard 5y ago
A Mergenthaler company survived into the 1990s. Its L-202 laser typesetting output unit was widespread in the early 1980s, and its L-300 allowed Postscript output.

by lqet 5y ago

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.

jameshart 5y ago

One of the things I love about linotype text justification is that it’s actually really a solution to a mechanical problem - the machine needs to make a complete line of text every time without leaving gaps at the end of the mold, and squeeze all the character blanks together tightly to prevent lead from squirting out - so driving wedges in between words to squeeze them together is a neat solution to that problem. That it has the side effect of creating that characteristic newspaper column justified aesthetic is a consequence of an engineering decision, not so much a deliberate design choice. Interesting article on this tech and its possible connection to our ongoing confusion about how many spaces go after a period: http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2014/01/two-spaces-old-typists-habit.html http://widespacer.blogspot.com/2014/01/two-spaces-old-typist... It’s not conclusive, but there is definitely something to this and the linotype’s mechanical justification that I think overall emphasizes how much what we think of as aesthetic judgements about what makes for good typography are actually just things we’ve grown used to from the technical limitations and operational choices made by people using particular technologies in the past.

cafard 5y ago

A Mergenthaler company survived into the 1990s. Its L-202 laser typesetting output unit was widespread in the early 1980s, and its L-300 allowed Postscript output.