Linotype

[Slappy]

http://vimeo.com/15032988

Linotype: The Film is a documentary about Ottmar Mergenthaler's amazing Linotype typesetting machine and the people who own and love these machines today.

 

My boss likes to talk about how he learned to set type on one of those machines, I believe at the Mergenthaler School in Baltimore. I had showed him an early trailer for this click a while back, I'll have to let him know when it gets released even though he'll be retired soon.

[frailer]

I'll never forget when the typeshop I was at bought an early postscript imagesetter, around 1989 (not a Lino, however) and the young smartass salesman threw a floppy at me and said:  "Lino this, quick!"

Glad that "verb" didn't stick around too long!

Compugraphic?

Close - it was a Varityper.

Meanwhile, I recently acquired my very own letterpress, a Craftsman Monarch (not made by Sears, by the way.) A friend was getting forclosed on and had to empty his garage fast and I ended up with his letterpress, 3 Gestetner silkscreen duplicators (a type of mimeograph) and a Ditto (the machine that made the purple copies that people sniffed in grade school and now call mimeos, which is incorrect, they're dittos, a completely different printing process.)

The letterpress did not come with any type and is missing the rollers. He thinks it was last used as a diecutter. I'll probably try and sell it and split what I get with my friend.

  remembered from my radical students days, early 70s. messy effing things. The pin registers formed a cursive 'Gestetner', correct? I remember they had a big shiny HQ in upmarket Rushcutters Bay here. used to ride there on the Cossack650 in my surplus store leather jacket, shoulder length hair, for supplies. Shoulda seen the looks I got when entering the reception foyer.   :laugh: