East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1908-10-30
TO SET TYPE
BY WIRELESS
POSSIBILITY OF INVENTION
by DANISH ENGINEER.
Editors Copy May BE Duplicated on
Lynotypc Machines In the Compos-
Ing ROOms-May Mean u Mechani-
cal RevOlutiOn-What Has Already
Been Done In the Office Of the
Brooklyn Eagle.

Hans Knudson, Danish electrical
engineer, Is credited with having per-
fected an invention by which he can
set type in an ordinary linotype ma
chine In Paris by wireless waves
thrown from London. He added that
he would soon publicly demonstrate
his invention.
The first machine, according to
Knudson, proved successful, setting
5000 words an hour at a distance just
az If the operator were working the
machine. He predicted that the Lon
don correspondents of New York pa
pers would soon be able to send their
news straight to the printing press
through the wireless operator.
Since then the Danish inventor has
given demonstration at the Hotel
Cecil London. He had several per-
sons writing at typewriter equipped
with a wireless outfit and the writing
was recorded in another room at a
similar machine.
shHN
II the apparatus fulfills expecta-
tons the editor, in his office. may be
equipped with a wireless instrument
by which his copy" will be duplicat-
ed on a linotype in the composing
room and the function OF the COM
posing room in newspaper offices will
be greatly reduced in importance.
1t has been inevitable, ever since
the linotype keyboard was made
nearly Identical with that of the type
writer, says the Brooklyn Eagle, that
one of the links between We writers
and the readers of newspapers was
bound to be cut out in the interest Of
speed and economy.
At present an editor or reporter
sits in the editorial rooms and prints
his ideas on typewriter This
printed sheet then goes to a linotype
operator in the composing room, who
sits at a keyboard like that of the
typewriter and strikes the same let
ters that the editor or reporter has
struck before him in order to put the
editors words into, type metal.
Must BE SklIlful.
Obviously two men are employed
for an operation which might be made
by one, II the editor could be made
mechanically skillful enough to oper-
ate the linotype, or the linotype op-
orator could receive the intellectual
training of the editor
Various devices have been made to
bridge that gulf Telegraph editors
have learned the linotype and, with
n receiver attached TO their ears, have
listened to telegraph dispatches and
put the matter directly into type
metal at the linotype keyboard with
out any intervening copy of the dis
patch on paper at all.
Obviously that requires a degree Of
intellectual and mechanical expertness
which can be attained by perhaps one
man in 10000, but It was done, and |
successfully done. In the Eagle office |
for some weeks.
That is. however, n brilliant intel |
lectual feat rather than the sort of
expert work which can be expected
from men good enough to write or set |
up paper like the Eagle.
Mr. Knudson thinks he has made a |
short cut past the linotype operator
by applying wireless telegraphy to the
problem.
In other words. the old-tme print
ers with their composing sticks are
fast going the way OF handwritten
copy" Mr. Knudson means to abol-
ish their successors, the linotype op-
orators.