The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-28
THE MoNoTYPE AT WORK.
4 TrPE-sETTING MACHINE THAI
RUNS ny ITSELF.
Feed II with Cor, in the shape of Rolls Of brown
Paper Punched with Round Holes snd n
VIII Furnish Type Ready TOR P~rIntinr-uts
Numerous Advantages and Possibilities.
From the Nc,e Revfe,g tLondon).

numerous huNhuthh'N "uu EOAstuttlticts
Fropt the Nctc Recfe,e t~London).
II Is so complete and providcnt, forcseoinE
every difficulty and surrounding It, aware of
every advantage and Selling 1t, that you can
hardly help feeling 1t to be a portcnt, inoxpli-
cable, born out Of season, without father or
mother, or beginning of days. Yet, though its
interior is n statistiCian, who came upon it not
through the study of printing but in the de-
vising OF calculating machines, the monotypc,
like every seeming prodigy, Is the issue Of n
long development, the offspring of n hundred
ancestors. Revolution Is the child of evolution
in printing as everywhere else.
The machine looks modest, and, 10 anybody
capable Of understanding machines, very sim.
pie. 1t stands perhaps ! feet high, 1t Is 3
feet 8 inches long by 3 feet broad, and 1t weighs
only 900 pounds. 1t requires very little power
to drive it. The buzz of its driving belt and tho
click. click of the work 1t is doing hardly makes
itself heard at your car above the chatter of
Lcadcnhall street. Altogether, 1t il one of tho
least ostentatious machines that ever made a
revolution. But II you look at 1t closer and
realize what It is doing. that machine Is ono
of the greatest marvcls Of all the marvellous
history of machinery, the crown OF over five
centuries development in the most vital of all
civilizing arts. The machine is casting and
setting type all by itsclf-setting it, too. moro
regularly, more ClCunly, mOTe Cnchply, anu
more untiringly than written words have ever
been set before. Click, click, click, and with
each click a fre.new. shining letter slides out
into its place in a line Of print. Click, click,
click, until n line is finished; the limo slides up
into its place in n column, and the machine,
before you have finished watching the line fall
in, has pushed out nearly half the next. No
body is touching it-nobody telling it what TO
say. 1t just goes on clicking out words and
words, thoughts and thoughts. 1t is the most
human Of all machines and the most inhuman.
1t Is human In its seemingly sclf-suggestcd In
tolligence, inhuman in its deliberate yet un.
resisting precision. U~nprompted and Tin.
checked, 1t might be clicking out life.giving
truth or dcvilish corruption, and clicking it out
forever.
Its full name is the Lanston Monotype Ma
chine; its familiars call it briefly the Monotype.
1t is almost n relief-so much you are hypno-
tized by the apparent spontaneity Of the thing
to learn that it is not saying just what i: likes,
that it is, after all, like other machines, mans
servant. There is a paper roll being unwound
and rewound on the top Of it, punched with
holes in various positions like the drum of a
musical box, which is telling it what to say.
There is n kind of tank where from time to time
it must DO fed with metal to cast its types
from. But within these limitations its activ-
~ 10 oity ohiiNASu - thS sAhhS iahiS ~
each type to cool; give it words to set and
metal to set them with. and it will go on un.
aided till you like to stop it.
To get a vague idea Of it's working you must
| begin with the perforated roll. There is a
keen-faced, clean.shaven young man in specta.
cles working what appears to be a typewriter in
one corner of the room; that is tho captain Of
the setting machine, and the man is the cap
tain of that. The two parts make really one
machine. and yet the ono Is perfectly indie
pendent in place or timo of the other. The
machines master begins by setting an index;
the index fixes the length of the line required.
Then he begins playing on the keys as with a
t~ypewriter; only each key, instead of writing
a letter, punches two round holes in the roll.
So he taps letter after letter till he has punched
q word 'bhen he taps a space, and on to the
next word. Presently, when he Is coming to
the end Of a line, a boil rings. You notice a
with a pointer travelling across it. Tho bell
means this: the line has nov progressed so far
You must now Justify" as PRIMERS cali it; that
is. equalize the spaces between the words Of tho
line. The Monotype's method of doing this is,
perhaps, the most beautiful of all its beauties.
There is q registering scale which has been fol.
lowing all the movements of the operator; 1t
now reveals on the dial, first, how much space
is over, 10 be divided equally among the spaces
between the words, and, second, the number OF
airy space is to be divided. Say there is ono
tenth Of an inch over and there arc ten spacest
an addition of one-hundredth of an inch -
each will Justify the line: To do such n thing
by hand means time and distraction OF attention,
and probably inaccuracy after al; to the Mono
type it is child's play. The operator simply
taps n key which punches yet another hole in
tn, the, ribbon ,Hn on, tiny men mnct line f fhnf Hoi Gom insnr to r tGnt
the word spaces shall be Just one-hundrcdth
above tho normal size, and the line will be JUS
titled with absolute mathematical cXactnGss.
When the ribbon is punched full it is lifted
Off the keyboard and fixed on to the casting and
automatically with a set of dies comprising
all the characters and symbols used in .ypc,
a an q s3mp pa9TS s sIiae s" tTs ad IN " Of S" wbt m94 mdSd
at right angles. Air is shot through these holes
by a pneumatic, tube. and the force brings tho
die required under a jet of molten metal. The
metal is forced into the mould. the type is cast
and shot out into the galley. The whole thing
comes out hind part before and upside down
the justifying holes at the ends Of each line
are thus the first to come under the obscrva'
types /" of the lines accordinsiy If there is a
mistake as to The length Of tho line the Mono
type refuses; 1t stops dead; the, minder puts
s Starts sr on aF F.fn.' Wien VII 'H the SV @nSio galley Ssef IS so9
a proof is pulled and corrected in the ordinary
is no need OF recasting. When the type is done
with it can either be retained for use, being
every bit as good as foundry type, or melted up
and used over. again. By reason of its facii
itics for changing the measure. of lines and its
accuracy OF iMstitication. the Monotypo can ;ct
than this can be done by hand. II is the only
machine which can make full use of capitals
and italics as supplied in IA full font Of type
Other machines can produce but II hundred
characters with "A hundred different move
ments; it can produce two hundred and twenty
five with thirty. To cut tCchHiCa!ities, The
Monotype can do everything that printing car
ask. 1t Is the child of evolution. Since very
early in the century machinery has fought tho
compositor, and though the man has kept hi,
head up hitherto, like the man he is, it was Ger
tain that in the end he must 20 down. MOI
down altogether, OF course, but down Ms IA HAND
compOsitOr; II mans II man. and will earn hi,
bread whether he trims sails or stokes fur
naces, whether he picks types out of "A box into
stick or sits on a scat and hits keys. But thu
earliest efforts of machinery left the compositol
by hand still easy master of the situation.
There have been two mai families o. these
which may conveniently he styled tho spou'
kind and tho whcc! kind. Tho original he
Retter of the first, DR.. Church, was an Amcri
i. can. like Mr., Lanston today; the inventor
who brought 1t into practice, Young and Del
/ cambre. were again like him, not professional
printers. Their machine, once more like it
: triumphant descendant OF to-day, started witt
a Keyboard; the types were lying in grooves ne