etaoin shrdlu

The linotype machine was replaced by a computer typesetter.

I worked in a newspaper/print shop in the late 1970s, and they were still using this exact technology! The linotypes had been mostly replaced by phototypesetting machines, but the old linotypes and letterpress presses were still used for some smaller jobs. A console to punch a paper tape was a lot cheaper, both in capital cost and maintenance, than a linotype machine. By using the paper tapes, two or three typists could keep one linotype busy, without having to give each typist a linotype. The same paper tape punching machines were also used to send copy to the more modern phototypesetting machines for offset printing. Again, they used the cheap keyboard/tape machines to avoid buying what was at the time very expensive computerized equipment for each operator.

As for the “telegraph” aspect, well not so much, at least in our shop. The tape was hand-carried from the typing consoles to the typesetters, a distance of 30 feet or so.

Of course, this is all done with PCs now.

We would call that “sneaker net.”

We still do that today when we use a flash drive, which is just merely another medium such as punched or magnetic tape, disk, etc.

Actually I have recently seen a Czechoslowakian sci-fi series from 1983 and there they still used such typesetters.

Besides, there’s not much lead in them, and they are fairly safe. I doubt you could break it by papertype.

Casandro…
What was the premise of the SF series?
Similar to a past or present western TV series?
How were the effects? (If any!)

An episode of The Twilight Zone had one.
‘Printer’s Devil’ with Burgess Meredith.

I wondered at the expense of hauling the machine into the studio!

I thought that this conversation was familiar http://blog.modernmecha…