rpi2caster - the Monotype composition caster control device!
Channel: Keri Szafir
Date: 2022-07-25

At the bench in my old lab, presenting the rpi2caster project. It's a Raspberry Pi based computer control device for a Monotype composition caster, a hot metal typesetting machine developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th century. I made three of these units, and two prototypes. Talking about how I built it, engineering challenges and some history.

0:00 Intro
1:39 Monotype perforated ribbon
2:00 The matrix case, sizes and addressing
4:01 Monotype, Linotype, Intertype...
4:45 That's one process less!
6:00 No more Monotype supplies
7:00 Bragging?
7:35 Ranting?
8:05 Can make more!
8:30 No caster modification required
9:45 Berry Inside
11:23 How It Works
13:30 How it is attached
14:35 Hardware user interface
15:40 Alternative designs and protocols for the future
16:30 No typesetting software yet
17:33 Witch with a soldering iron!
18:00 Proud of it
19:10 Bench time! 
19:25 Early version a.k.a. MkI
20:19 The problems with MkI
21:58 USB failure
22:40 Inside the rpi2caster MlkI
23:23 Interface PCB
25:30 MkI connections
27:25 Pneumatics
29:31 Power supply
30:30 rpi2caster MkII, the production one
31:09 MkII back panel
31:24 MkII custom mod for the Book Art Museum
33:10 Inside MkII 
34:36 Additional tidbits
36:57 Summing up

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