[GreenKeys] Digitronics Dial-o-verter in Transatlantic Teleteypsetter Link

[dmm at lemur.com]

Randy wrote:
>No "reels" were used on the paper tape - as it was 
>"fan-folded".

Most of the photographs I've seen of Teletypesetter operation of
linecasters show the paper tape running in to a small trashcan
under the Linotype.  These were mostly newspapers, and once the
story was set, it was yesterday's news.

There was an interesting (but now forgotten, and very poorly documented)
phase in the history of typesetting where they started adding
computer pre- and post-processing to Teletypesetter tapes.  So for example
Compugraphic made a unit called the "Justape" which took as input
a 6-level TTS tape which had been punched without any of the rather
complex line-justification information (by an untrained and therefore
cheaper operator), computed line justification, and punched (BRPE punch)
a justified tape to feed to the Linotype.  The guys I know who ran it
said it did a terrible job - but newspapers have always preferred 
fast-and-cheap over quality in typesetting.   Another article in the
series of "Intertype Interludes" from which I scanned the
transatlantic article shows an Elliot 803 computer in use for 
typesetting - ultimately feeding Intertypes/Linotypes via tape
(I can scan that if anyone wants to see it).  

Nobody in the printing world seems to remember much of this
(aside from the un-loved Justape and running Linotypes as "robots"
under TTS control), but as soon as one starts probing in the
bibliography a bit, one finds that there was a LOT going on
to integrate processing into tape control from the late 1950s on.
The standard history goes "hand type -> hot metal -> phototypesetting ->
Macintosh", but in fact it was much more complicated.  The same
manual or computer produced TTS tapes were used to drive both
hot metal linecasters and "cold-type" phototypesetters.

Regards,
David M.
===
Dr. David M. MacMillan  -  dmm at lemur.com

   The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
       - Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915); Aldo Leopold

www.CircuitousRoot.com   *  www.LemurType.com   *  www.Lemur.com