Liontype Machines
Sep. 19th, 2011 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deguspiceThis weekend, I went to an event at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. The museum is primarily devoted to the history of industry in Waltham (so they have lots of stuff related to watches). To me, the most interesting thing they had on display was a pair of Linotype machines that are being restored.
Linotype machines (first developed in the 1880s) allow someone at a keyboard to quickly typeset lines of text. The machine quickly assembles the letters as they descend from the magazine (or matrix). It then takes the letters and moves them into a mould where molten lead is injected. The "slug" is ejected and the letters are automatically returned to the magazine. It's how the letters are returned to magazine that makes the machine extremely fascinating.
Each letter has a triangular slot with teeth at the top, in a form of binary code (a bit like hollorith coding for punchcards). The letters are moved to the top of the machine and then pushed along a track above the magazine. The track is also triangular and has grooves that correspond to the the letter's teeth. The grooves in the track appear and disappear above each slot in the magazine. If the only grooves missing match the teeth present on the letter, there's nothing left to hold the letter and it falls into its slot.
This ability to quickly return the letters to the magazine is what made the Linotype machine useful.
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Linotype machines (first developed in the 1880s) allow someone at a keyboard to quickly typeset lines of text. The machine quickly assembles the letters as they descend from the magazine (or matrix). It then takes the letters and moves them into a mould where molten lead is injected. The "slug" is ejected and the letters are automatically returned to the magazine. It's how the letters are returned to magazine that makes the machine extremely fascinating.
Each letter has a triangular slot with teeth at the top, in a form of binary code (a bit like hollorith coding for punchcards). The letters are moved to the top of the machine and then pushed along a track above the magazine. The track is also triangular and has grooves that correspond to the the letter's teeth. The grooves in the track appear and disappear above each slot in the magazine. If the only grooves missing match the teeth present on the letter, there's nothing left to hold the letter and it falls into its slot.
This ability to quickly return the letters to the magazine is what made the Linotype machine useful.
