Tonopah daily bonanza. [volume] (Tonopah, Nev.) 1906-1929, 1911-04-11

article into type for printing, was
twenty-one years old Saturday. If
the newspaper men and printers
We're not too busy to do anything
but work, they might have cele-
brated the day as a great holiday,
with Thanksgiving and burnt offer
ings and libations; for without this
machine the newspaper of today
could not exist.
The linotype was not born, Min
erva-like, from any Joyian brow,
but as it stands today is the prod
uct of the minds of the many mas
ter mechanics who have added i'm
provement after improvement, until
the PROJECTIONS and the peryersities
OF the machine make it seem a
body of metal endowed with a hui
man heart and brain.
The idea upon which the limo
type was perfected was, however,
the conception of Ottmar Mergen-
thaler, whose name the machine
bears, and whose heirs collect
royalty of fifty dollars upon every
machine sold. This idea took shape
in 1883, the first Mergenthaler ma
chine was built in 1885, and the
second one later in the same year.
Machines Of the type of the second
model were used in many news
paper and job printing offices, but
there was yet something lacking.
In 1890 the shortcomings of the
Older machine were recognized and
Mr.. Mergenthaler perfected and pat
ented machine which embodied all
the essential principles of the limo
type Of today, That patent was
granted on April 8, 1890, and
therefore the linotype is twenty-one
years old old enough to vote.
The difference between the ma
chimes of 1885 and the machine of
1890 was so radical that the real
said to date from the introduction
of the latter type. Since that time
it is true that thousands of inn
provements have been patented and
applied to the machine, but none of
them has radically interfered with
the principle of the patent of 1890.
Perhaps other Improvements will
yet be made certainly some inven-
tive genius ought to devise a sys-
TEN of balancing the casting lever
so they every operator would not
hang tin bucket of type metal
pigs on the lever of even the
newest machine in the shop. But
that is bit of technique.
The real reason why the limo
type leaped into universal favor
as soon as it was perfected in 1890
was that it was the first practical
machine to offer a substitute for
the slow and laborious process of
setting type by hand Scores of
inventors had tried for years. with
more or less success, to construct a
type-setting machine. The reason
Mergenthaler succeeded where so
many had failed was that he dis
carded the idea of setting type and
substituted for it the idea of cast
ing type, line at a time
His first machine was fitted with
a number of vertical movable bars,
into each of which was cut the
dies of all the letters of the alpha
bet, small letters and capitals, the
figures, characters and other signs
used in printing. By touching a
key Cn a Keyboard like that of
a typewriter, the bars would fall
until the die corresponding with the
letter on the keyboard presented
itself exactly before the orifice of
mold connected with a pot of
molten type metal. When a whole
line of letters had been assembled
in this fashion the metal was in
jected into the mold and line
of type was cast-thus the name
line of type. The second. machine
of 1885 was constructed on the the
DRY that the long die-bars were too
cumbersome. 1t had an independ-
ent matrix, or die, for each letter
or figure. These were forced down
through upright slots into the cast
ing box by currents of compressed
air. The machine was practicable,
but it was liable to get out of or
der and did not meet with universal
approval. About two hundred ma
chimes of this kind were built
The machine of 1890 obviated
these defects by permitting the
matrices to fall by force of gravity
from an inclined magazine. Mr..
Mergenthaler also materially inn
proved the mechanism of the dis
tribution of the used matrices after
the casting of a line of type The
product of the invention of 1890 in
corporated, as has been said, every