Category: Composition

The first commercial Linotype was introduced (after many years of experiment) in 1886. With this machine only 106 characters were available to the operator, as compared with 944 characters which the operator can control on a modern Linotype.

The somewhat elongated keyboard consisted of four banks of key buttons. The keys were pivoted in a supporting frame carried by a bar attached to the magazine tubes, and each had a vertical slot or opening for the passage of a matrix, which dropped by gravity as the key was depressed; at the same time another matrix descended from the magazine tube to take the place of the one discharged, and rested on the upper edge of the key. Read the Full Article . . .

TYPESETTING. As we have seen composing type by hand was a very slow and skilled trade. The machine in this picture was called the Kastenbein Typesetter. Instead of picking up each tiny letter by hand the typesetter just tapped the letters he wanted, like a typewriter. The machine also sorted out the letters after they had been used, so they could be used again. The Times installed this typesetter in the 1870s