[GreenKeys] Model 20 Teletype available

[Don Robert House]

Jim,

I actually spoke to the VP of the GPS Company that told me that is how  
they selected the name.
I did that to check on the trademarks when doing the T-Shirts and Caps.
The company actually was Teletypesetter,  although I did not verify  
they were a division of Fairchild.

George Hutchison's father was a Linotype operator.

Don


On 9 Jan 2009, at 8:55 PM, Jim Haynes wrote:

Teletype Corp. had a sister company, Teletypesetter Corp. that made the
equipment to control a Linotype, and also the special perforator for
the tape.  They seem to have had separate manufacturing facilities but
pretty much the same engineering staff.  You find patents being issued
to the same person about the same time and assigned to Teletype or to
Teletypesetter depending on the nature of the invention.  The  
typesetting
process used some more or less standard Teletype equipment, such as a
6-level nontyping reperforator and the Model 20 up/low case printer.
The former was just a variation on the 5-level reperf design, and the
latter was a variation on the Model 15 printer.

Since the Model 20 didn't do proportional spacing it would not show
you what the typeset lines would look like - it would have a ragged
right margin - but editors could use the Model 20 copy to decide
which articles to choose for typesetting.

As a result of the 1956 consent decree, settling an antitrust action
against AT&T, Teletypesetter was divested and sold to Fairchild.  Don
House was telling me last summer that somehow the ghost of that
company reincarnated into the GPS equpment company that now uses
the name Teletype, and that was why they chose the name.

It's interesting that Frank Pearne, who was the original inventor behind
Teletype, foresaw in 1901 that he could control a typesetting machine
remotely and would revolutionize the transmission of news.  He seems
to have considered that as equally important as transmitting business
messages.

I imagine Teletypesetter was a tough sell in the big cities where the
unions of Linotype operators were strong and resisted any technology
that would eliminate their jobs.  But out in the hinterlands it was
very popular, with groups of newspapers forming chains to take advantage
of typesetting by wire.


jhhaynes at earthlink dot net


_______________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys