Talk:Linotype machine

message: If anyone can find an explanation on why the keyboard is layed out the way it is instead of the standard QWERTY format, I think it would be a valuable addition to the article. — Jessy Smith  —Preceding undated comment added 13:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: QWERTY vs Linotype Layout Explanation

message: Does anybody have a picture or diagram showing the etaoin shrdlu keyboard layout?
http://static.flickr.com/82/214724189_4adf1d6985_m.jpg  i don't know if that link works but i couldn't get the picture it self to show. hope this helps
:The Etaoin Shrdlu article has a better picture.-- era (Talk | History) 07:58, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Etaoin Shrdlu Keyboard?

message: So is a linotype machine like a backwards typewriter that punches letters into a molten lead plate that is then covered with ink and used to print pages?
* No punching, it's all done with molten metal.
: There is a case or magazine filled with steel "matrices" (moulds), sorted into letters. Pressing a key releases one of these into a rack, the rack representing a line of text. When the line is complete, another button sends it off to the caster, where molten typemetal is cast into the whole line to make a slug. That slug then goes off to be assembled into a frame to make a page.  The matrices are sent back to the magazine, and they're sorted there back into the right letters, as each matrix has a series of coding lumps on the side.
: When all the printing has been done, the slugs are taken out of the frame and re-melted. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:24, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: How does it work?

message: Any interest in one of these sections? I just found a short story by Frederic Brown. Etaoin Shrdlu. Included in The Best of Frederic Brown: Ballantine, 1977. Earlier Publication Unknown Worlds, February 1942 by Street & Smith Publications. TaoPhoenix (talk) 01:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's listed in the "popular culture" section of ETAOIN SHRDLU. I think duplicating that section here is unnecessary. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popular Culture 

message: always found their clackety-clack soothing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.148.219 (talk) 18:29, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Most went to scrap, some of it during war drives. There are some still operated by small shops or by hobbyists. See Linotype.org for some of them. PaulRomaine (talk) 18:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  where have all the mergenthalers gone? 

message: The article Casting section says, The continuous heating of the molten alloy causes the tin and antimony in the mixture to slowly boil off, resulting in a softening of the alloy as the lead concentration increases. The mixture must then be assayed and tin and antimony added back to restore the original alloy toughness.  
This is a good start, but what is the correct proportion of lead, tin, and antimony in the molten alloy?
Also, when the type slugs have been used for printing, and the metal is returned to be used again, it is generally melted again, and in the process burning off any ink or impurities, and tin and antimony is added, and cast into bars or pigs for use in the machines. This should be explained somewhere, perhaps in the Linotype alloy article, which should cover both the proportions and the need to remelt the used slugs. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:51, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Hot metal typesetting article covers the remelting process. It does not say anything about the proportions.--DThomsen8 (talk) 00:08, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

text: The type metal article discusses the alloys in detail, including proportions.  I found a reference to "Linotype Metal" in the Linotype Machine Principles book; it agree with the type metal article. Paul Koning (talk) 18:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alloy proportions? 

message: The names suggest the answer: a Linotype machine casts lines (one generic name for the machine that avoids the "linotype" trademark is "linecaster").  A Monotype machine casts individual letters.  They were also used in different environments: Linotype in newspapers, Monotype in book publishing. Paul Koning (talk) 18:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The Monotype was invented later by Tolbert Lanston. Linotype was earlier, not later. Most of the typesetters (people) are retired or in new jobs--the ITU (union) was absorbed in 1987 by the Communication Workers. Most of the typesetters (machines) were scrapped. If you want to find current users, just look around. Most of them are hobbyists or fine printers. Most commercials dropped linotype long ago. There are training sessions availble from hobbyist sponsored "Monotype University" and "Linotype University." PaulRomaine (talk) 18:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  how is the linotype machine distinct from the older monotype machine? 

message: Not a technical Linotype issue, but I find this sentence "Before Mergenthaler's invention of the Linotype in 1884, no newspaper in the world had more than eight pages." to be nearly impossible to believe, although I cannot prove it is wrong.
: Some might say this reflects a lack of imagination on your part rather than any indication of whether the statement is correct or not. The statement does, however, need a citation. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:28, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  DavidWBrooks: no reason to be insulting. I think it's an absurd proposition until I see documentation from the 19th C. As a librarian who has worked in rare books and special collections, it's just not true. It's uncommon to get longer newspapers. Colonial are typically 4pp. 19thC urban before the 1850s are typically 4-8pp and usually large broadsheets (not like our modern tabloid). I recall some Civil War papers that were longer for battles, but not common, and the additional sheets were clearly add-ons and extras. The reason *might* be quantity of type and the limitations of small shops, but as demand increased it's likely that it had to do with how many times you can fold a sheet easily without it becoming too small. Printers printed on unfolded sheets which were then folded to make the "pages" of a newspaper. There's also a physical limitation with the size of paper you can make before the invention of paper machines. (A workman can dip, shake and hold a hand papermold only so large.) You need very large sheets of paper--in fact, not sheets, but *rolls* of paper. Harpers did move from 8 to 16 pp. around the time of the Linotype (memory fails me), and I think composition speed was a big part of that. I would love to see contemporary documentation from the American Printer or from the United Typothetae making the 8pp point.PaulRomaine (talk) 18:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

text: I would like to see this issue addressed, or see the offending text at least modified with "some say" or other weasel words. It's a big, bold statement, and just because someone said it (i.e., it has a citation), that doesn't mean it's correct. Wikipedia should be cautious with blanket statements like this, if only to ease the pain of teachers grading term papers. Also, the supporting quote *does not say* that no newspapers in the world were longer than 8 papers, so as a citation, it's just window-dressing. Furfish (talk) 20:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to me that you might get away with "rarely" instead. For a daily newspaper, it has to take less than a day to set. A weekly might be able to do more pages. Gah4 (talk) 22:25, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I will remove the offending sentence; it doesn't have a thing to do with the operation of the Linotype machine. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:24, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  pages of newspapers

message: I just ran across an advertisement in a 1921 Wake Forest College newspaper describing the history of the linotype. The advertisement is for The Record Publishing Co. in Zebulon, N.C., presumably the town's own newspaper. That history claims a Zebulon man invented the linotype process and sold it to Mergenthaler, a lawyer, who then developed it into a workable machine. If the story is true, it seems the man who sold the idea, one William Foster, deserves at least part of the credit. Check it out here, (scroll to page 4 and you'll see the ad): http://dspace.zsr.wfu.edu/jspui/bitstream/10339/3534/1/1941-10-17.pdf.  69.134.180.125 (talk) 07:27, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That's very cool (I love the editorial cartoon "Coeds-Bah!" on page 2) but as history it is incredibly dubious. Typesetting machines were the computers of their day, and everybody was inventing versions ... Mark Twain lost a fortune on one, IIRC ... so the ad smacks of local boosterism / revisionism. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting but very unlikely. There's just too much documentation pointing to Ottmar Mergenthaler as the original inventor. And Mergenthaler was a machinist from Germany. The article is probably conflating Mergenthaler with James O. Clephane, a lawyer and stenographer in Washington who was an early backer, who came to Mergenthaler with an idea for a machine that would print using a typewriter keyboard--but it was NOT the machine Mergenthaler devised. Previous incarnations included a typewriter that would create text suitable for printing via offset lithography. The weird thing with the Linotype machine was that instead of thinking about metal type as something to be used and re-used (as with most of the early composing machines), it just made fresh type each time. (I'm editing a book right now for a university press on the Linotype Company, so I'm immersed in this right now. There are legal documents up the wazoo protecting the company from lawsuits--so where's the lawsuit, or where's the deed of sale?) PaulRomaine (talk) 18:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems to me that this is a legal question. If you buy a patent, not just license, but buy it completely, are you then the inventor? And most inventions build off existing inventions. For comparison, see who first came up with L%27Hôpital%27s_rule. Gah4 (talk) 22:31, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  No. The metadata for patents has made this clear for centuries. There are inventor(s), who retain inalienable moral rights, and there are assignee(s), often their employers, who gain the beneficial commercial rights. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:36, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, I didn't say it right. For one, even though as you note people are the inventors and companies the assignees, inventions are often claimed by companies. If one says that Mergenthaler invented something, is that the person or company? And if a company buys a patent, such that they are the new assignee, can the company claim the invention? (Though they are not the inventor.) Gah4 (talk) 03:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Companies do not invent things. The inventor is always a person (or persons), and never changes even if the patent is re-assigned. If Mergenthaler invented something, then that's the person, not the company. Kendall-K1 (talk) 03:30, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

text: Yes, but companies take credit for inventions, and people commonly assign them to companies, as long as the inventor is not so famous. If you go down the street, and ask who invented the copier (and pretty much no-one now counts wet copiers), people will say Xerox, and not Chester Carlson. On the other hand, Edison is popularly credited with the incandescent light bulb, not GE, his company (or successor company).  There is probably more than one patent in the Linotype machine, too. Gah4 (talk) 04:57, 18 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to distinguish sloppy or casual terminology with precise legal terminology.  It may be that people refer to companies inventing stuff.  As has been pointed out, this is obviously wrong, since only people have brains capable of creating inventions.  In any case, it's legally wrong.  Patents have inventors, and there is a specific legal definition of what makes an inventor.  Patents also have owners (assignees).  The two are entirely separate.  Normally, when company employees invent, the patent owner (assignee) is the company.  The owner can practice the patent (make what the patent covers), prevent others from practicing it, or license the right to practice it.  But having a patent assigned to you (as employer, or by purchasing the rights) does not make you an inventor.  Similarly, the fact that someone is the inventor's boss does not legally make the boss an inventor.  Only people who make a sufficient intellectual contribution to the invention are inventors. Paul Koning (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Actual inventor?

message: I suggest that the wording in the first paragraph of the phrase 
"when it was largely replaced by offset lithography printing and computer typesetting"
be changed to 
"when it was largely replaced by offset lithography printing and, later, computer typesetting"
to indicate that there was a significant gap between the beginning of the decline of metal type and the advent of digital typesetting. (At least, that is my impression.  If I am wrong, feel free to ignore or correct me.  My only claim to being in the industry is that I once worked as a temp on a web press.)
Starling2001 (talk) 03:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know the answer at all, but it seems to me that offset printing is much older than digital typesetting, but is a convenient process for doing the actual printing. As well as I know it, offset printing started to get popular soon after xerography, which is a convenient way to make masters. You can, and I presume they do, make metal masters from digital data. Offset works well for smaller runs, metal for bigger ones. I suggest keeping the current form, not because they happened at the same time, but because the transition was gradual enough not to give a specific time to either of them. Gah4 (talk) 22:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Since offset printing goes back to 1875, it doesn't seem right to say that it replaced the Linotype. Gah4 (talk) 22:39, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be appropriate to say that offset lithography and computer typesetting replaced the linotype in widespread use or as the printing technology of choice for commercial printing, or words to that effect.  It is entirely possible for a technology invented long ago to eclipse another, even a newer, technology, if it is (or when it becomes) more efficient or cost-effective.  Xerography as we know it now was invented during the late 1930s and early '40s, but the first practical xerographic copier did not appear until the '60s and the mimeograph remained in use for many years after that.General Ization Talk    00:13, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

text:  I would disagree with the original suggestion.  I suppose it's possible in principle to make offset plates from page layouts set in metal with Linotype machines, but I don't know that this was done.  Sheet printing can go straight from assembled cast lines; web printing would be done by converting an assembled page into a printing cylinder with the stereotype process.  Once phototypesetting appeared (first without computers, soon with), pages were made up from photographic paper, and the finished page would then be turned into a printing page with another optical process.  That could still be done by stereotype but this was not common.  More often, the negative of the finished page would be exposed onto a printing plate that could be etched -- producing a letterpress printing plate -- or a photosensitive offset plate, for use in an offset press.  Both were common in newspapers where I encountered all this in the late 1970.  So while phototypesetting enabled the widespread use of offset printing, it isn't the case that all phototypeset material was then printed using offset. Paul Koning (talk) 15:45, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Timing 

message: I took out the section on health problems. It was unsourced and doesn't seem to be true. The CDC Material Safety Data Sheet (from 1969, the latest I could find with "Linotyper" listed as an occupation) says there is no incidence of plumbism among Linotypers, and the concentration of lead in the air around a Linotype is low. You don't get significant fumes below 500° C, which is above the temperature of a Linotype pot. Kendall-K1 (talk) 18:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Health problems 

message: Simply linking to Ottmar Mergenthaler for the history section is a very bad idea.
Ottmar Mergenthaler's article is about more than just Linotype history.  And conversely, Linotype history is not simply the story of Ottmar Mergenthaler. Battling McGook (talk) 19:35, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, the history is a mess. We've got this article, Mergenthaler Linotype Company, and Ottmar Mergenthaler but none of them have much to say about the history of this machine. Which is odd considering the machine is mostly an historic curiousity at this point. For example, when did production of the machine begin, how many were made, when did production end? Very basic questions, but not answered anywhere on WP. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:08, 8 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing History 

message: *For an amusing poem, go to http://www.briarpress.org/25122 and then text-search for "The printing shop is dirty and hot". Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:27, 30 July 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  In media 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Just a note that the images showing hot-metal type are upside down. Such type is read from left to right. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 05:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Type is read from left to right 

message: As others have already stated some 4 years ago, the history section should have at least a summery of the history of the Linotype machine. We especially should point out the Linotype machine was being phased out in the 1970's and mentioned what replaced it. --Notcharliechaplin (talk) 14:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section needs summery 

message: I never had the chance (or misfortune?) of seeing one of these machines in action, although I have met and befriended someone who has worked on one—sadly, he passed away some time ago, so I can’t ask him this…
The article says the keyboard had “no shift key; uppercase letters have keys separate from the lowercase letters.” However, it looks from the image of the keyboard that many keys did have two possible results or options: For example, most of the blue (center-section) keys have two characters on them, e.g. 1V, 7G, 2B, 8R, etc.
Can someone explain these in the article (or, at the very least, as an answer to my question, here in the Talk page)?
Thanks in advance,
CielProfond (talk) 23:33, 15 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: From the keyboard picture, upper and lower case characters are separate. There is no shift key in the sense of upper/lower shift. I don't see a good explanation for the characters in the center, and don't see a shift key. Gah4 (talk) 01:56, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: "The blue keys in the center are used for figures, punctuation marks, spaces, leaders, small caps and so on." https://books.google.com/books?id=nxAbWt3LXXgC&pg=PA304&lpg=PA304&dq=linotype+keyboard+blue+keys+center&source=bl&ots=2MLJPC084o&sig=ACfU3U2amxg5nAjOidMee8fIpQV6vU2WgA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwieieSAie_lAhXEslkKHTGdDB4Q6AEwCnoECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=linotype%20keyboard%20blue%20keys%20center&f=false ... guess I'll add this to the article. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:44, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, and there is more than one glyph on most of the keys. Is there a shift key for them, or is it that some fonts have one and some the other?  In any case, there is now upper/lower case shift. Gah4 (talk) 18:56, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Since they could only produce one character per matrix, they must be options depending on which matrix set is loaded. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 19:05, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm. There could be up to 126 or so slots in a case, but most have less.  In that case, I am not sure. Gah4 (talk) 01:59, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Shift Key? 

message: The opening paragraph says that linotype was replaced in the late 70's by offset lithography. I think this is incorrect. Offset lithography is a printing method. Linotype is a typesetting method. So offset lithography cannot replace linotype. So the NY Times, for example, was printed by offset lithography during the linotype era, just as it still is now, in the computer typesetting era. Kawfmin (talk) 01:27, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I might not be so convinced. Consider that Linotype is a way of making metal type that can directly be used for printing, or, as well as I know (I went on newspaper tours long enough to see this in action) be used to make curved metal plates used directly on a press. But phototypesetting doesn't produce metal type. Linotype is part of the hot metal based printing method. Phototypesetting can be used to photographically produce a printing plate for use on a big press, or an offset master for offset printing, with the latter more convenient for smaller shops. The reduced cost of phototypesetting over metal typesetting allows for smaller scale publications to make economic sense, along with the move away from hot metal printing technology. Gah4 (talk) 12:45, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

text: In between linotype and computer typesetting is Phototypesetting, which uses photographic negatives of characters to expose photographic paper. This would work will with photo offset printing. As well as I know it, the popular early use for Xerox machines was not copying, but generating masters for offset printing. As the price came down, they got more popular for general use copying. Gah4 (talk) 13:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offset Lithography 

message: There currently seems to be some inconsistent use of tenses in this article. The lede begins ():
:The Linotype machine ( )  a "line casting" machine used in printing which  manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related companies. It  a hot metal typesetting system...
So was it or is it? Well it, the article, that is, was okay, but then...
Such inconsistencies seem to be a frequent problem in articles about old/obsolete things. ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tenses