The Newtown bee., 1907-06-14
TOWN TOPICS.
  THE SIMPLEX MACHINE INSTALLED LAST WEEK.


 The article which you are reading. gentle critic, is type-set by machinery. It is also written by machinery on typewriter, and perhaps it would be more entertaining if it were composed by machinery.
 We hasten to say this before you say it. Type-setting machines have been in existence great many years. But until recently they were crude affairs and very expensive. Their perform ance has been so slow that they were not deemed practical for the news papers of the United States and their use has been largely of an an experi- however-say within the last eight or ten years-the manufacturers have overcome great many difficulties in construction and solved many problems of rapid and accurate operation, so that every daily newspaper in the large cities, hundreds in the smaller cities have discarded the familiar stand and case with it's man or woman type-set- ter picking up the tiny pieces of metal one by one and arranging them into lines which grew slowly into columns, days work. Then after the paper was printed these columns were thrown back into the case letter by letter and line by line-the operation of distributing being about three times as rapid as the setting. Notwithstand- pared with the work of a machine, it was wonderful how delft and speedy the expert compositor became in his work. The performance was as inter esting to watch as the movements of the skilled manipulator of a typewrit- ter. The hand flew back and forth, each time picking up thin piece of metal and placing it right end up in the iron t.stick"held in the left hand. The typesetter's eye always went ahead of his fingers and selected the individual letter from the many con tained in the particular box in which it belonged, noting it's exact. position with reference to the end on which the letter was stamped and the position of the hicks which must always be uppermost when the type was deposit ed in the stick. Then without glancing at it again the impression left on the mind enabled the typesetter to convey | it to it's proper place while the eyes | selected the next letter in the word in | another part of the case Blu t | skillful as the typesetter became it | was slow process after all. This can be understood when it is stated that | in setting up column of the size of | type used in The Bee about 5000 pieces of metal must be picked up one | by one, the task requiring between two and three hours. Behold the change! When you enter The Bee com posing room you will see the cylindri- cal typesetting machine. It stands about six feet high and it's diameter | is not over two feet. 1t is connected with an overhead pulley and shaft for it must have motion to complete the work of the person who presides at the key yboard and plays upon the keys as | the operator manipulates the now fa- l miliar typewriter.
 l The cylinder is slit at intervals with perpendicular channels less than a quarter of an inch wide and extending from the bottom to the top of the low CT half of the cylinder. These chan els contain the supply of type. each piece in one position on it's side, one on top of another, the letter ends showing on the outer circumference o1 the cylinder. There are 90 of these channels-one for every small letter and every capital and every figure, fraction and punctuation mark.
 At the bottom of the cylinder is g polished steel plate revolving around on the outside of the cylinder at 15t revolutions a minute. You hardly no tice that it is in motion until the oper. ator begins to play on the keyboard then you see and understand its pur. pose.
 That part of the cylinder referred to as containing the channels full o1 type is stationary. The instant the operator strikes a key plunger inside the channel, controlled by it's own par .ticular key, and the letter shoots out upon the revolving disc and is whiskeC around until it reaches a chute int which it is switched, to be carried by 1 belt into the typeway directly in front of the keyboard. The letter goes upol the disc flat upon it's side, but whel it reaches the typeway it is standing on end, the character being uppermos where it can be read by the operator , As the keyboard is rapidly worke the letters are darting out of the ire spective channels and taking thei . place on the revolving disc. They nov so swiftly that you can only see tn glint of their polished surface as the. , whirl around to take their places i the long line of letters which is pass ing in front of the operator.
 } Here the operators assistant. calle . the ''spacer, sitting at the left take ? up the work tor the operator swing , around and does it). With tool calle . a grab the operator takes enoug I of the long row of letters to make line long enough approximately : it quickly forward and sliding it int brass pan familiarly known to prin
 CTS as a galley" This pan is of tf
 exact width of a newspaper colum
 and the spacer's work is to make u
 line of type fit easily into the galle.
 If a trifle too long the last word
 the line is divided, hyphen inserte
 thicker spaces substituted between u
 words for the regulation size spac
 which the operators key has inserte
 When the line just fits the galley k'
 is pressed and a plunger springs up
 front of the galley, pushes the lii
 gently back to leave room for the ne
 line which has already been grabb
 and is being drawn along the typew
 to take it's place in the galley precise
 as before. The plunger not only serv
 the purpose of human fingers in pus
 ing the lines back in the galley but
 the same time places '1ead'
 front of the line if Headed" matter
 being set. If 'solid'' matter is bel
 set simple adjustment retains ., lead in the plunger when it pushes
 line back.
 This is all very wonderful, but t
 distributor is more so. The machi
 not only sets type but attributes it au
 matically at the same time. The I - per part of the cylinder, having ch;
 nels exactly like the lower part,
 wolves on top of the lower cylinder.
 A galley of dead type containing 1
 articles that have appeared in the p;
 CT is placed in receptacle oppos
 the revolving cylinder. A plunt