The Linotype:

A Machine to Supersede Typesetting

Scientific American 9aug1890

In the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of March 9, 1889, appeared an illustration and description of a machine then being successfully operated in the New York Tribune office, and which superseded all typesetting in the ordinary way, as heretofore done by hand. The accompanying engraving represents the same machine, but with important improvements and modifications which have since then been made. The machine is constructed after the patents of Ottmar Mergenthaler, now controlled by the Mergenthaler Printing Company of New York City, and is styled the linotype machine, because it casts lines or type blocks, as shown in the small view herewith, to be used instead of individual types set up and "spaced" to make the required measure. To form these lines a matrix is necessary for each letter or character, these matrices being assembled in the proper order by operating a series of finger keys like those of the typewriter.

In the improved machine the matrices, instead of being held, as formerly, in vertical tubes just above the keyboard, one tube for each different letter or character, are contained in the channels of a magazine formed of properly grooved top and bottom plates, set at a little distance above the keyboard, and inclined toward it at an angle of about forty-five degrees.

The matrices are flat pieces of brass, on the edge of which is the female die for forming its proper letter, and for each touch on one of the keys a single matrix drops from its inclined magazine down a vertical or nearly vertical chute to the point of assembling. The arrangement is such that no air blast is needed, as in the former machine, to bring the matrix quickly to its proper place in the formation of the line. To increase the speed of the matrices that are not in direct line vertically with the place of assembling, the vertical chutes at each side are made of gradually diminished length, the bottoms of the chutes of the chute section thus forming a sharp incline, just below which, and at a corresponding inclination, is a fast-running belt. In this way the matrices the farthest off come into position as quickly as those which are nearest, and there is no danger of transposition of the letters when the machine is worked at its highest speed. There is also a great advantage in the arrangement on the magazine with the grooved plates, instead of separate tubes, as heretofore, for, by making proportionate flanges on the sides of the matrices, one set of magazine plates can be used for matrices representing several different sizes of type, and the work of changing the machine from one side to another is but slight.

The work of "spacing" is essentially unchanged. The spaces are simply long, tapering wedges, dropped in their proper places by the operator in the same manner as a letter would be in the formation of a line, and, when it is seen that the line would take no more of the text, a simple touch of a lever pushes all the wedges simultaneously enough further in to make a perfect "justification," in which there is no possibility of uneven spacing. Thence the line of matrices, properly clamped, is taken automatically to a pot of metal automatically kept at the proper temperature, substantially as heretofore described, the type block is cast and deposited in proper order with its predecessors, and the matrices themselves taken to a distributing device, and the whole machine is much less complicated than formerly. To a person of sufficient intelligence it must be as easy to "learn to set type" with this machine as to acquire facility in operating a typewriter.

Much as printers generally are inclined to be skeptical as to the practicability of any typesetting machine in actual work, it is hardly possible to observe the operation of this machine without being convinced that, for ordinary composition, it is a remarkable success. A compositor will ordinarily compose or "set up" 1,000 to 1,200 ems an hour, and it requires one-third of his time in addition thereto to ''distribute" his type, or put them back in the case. This machine, performs both operations simultaneously, and at a speed equal to that of a typewriter. One but ordinarily expert in typewriting can readily write from thirty to forty words a minute, and, to illustrate the amount of composition accomplished at different rates of speed, a table has been prepared by an expert printer, from which it appears that

It is said that the machine can be ran at the rate of 10,000 ems an hour, if the operator can work the keys fast enough, although from 5,000 to 6,000 ems an hour has been found to be about the highest practical speed thus far. The work is cleaner and much less tiresome than typesetting by hand, and to learn it is but the task of only a few hours. The machine in its old form has been for a considerable time in successful use in several large daily newspaper offices, in different sections of the country, and its importance has been recognized and is appreciated by the International Typographical Union, which directs practical printers to run the machines in all offices within its jurisdiction where they are used. The President of the New York Typographical Union, after witnessing recently a trial of the new machine, writes: "I conclude that the acme of perfection in a typesetting machine has been reached."