FarewellEtaoinShrdlu

we are fast approaching press time for the first edition of tomorrow morning's paper this printer has just finished makeup of a page in the next 56 minutes all pages must be finished and recorded to meet the Edition deadline of 9:00 p.m. but tonight's deadline is special this New York Times mirror image inlet of tomorrow's date line reads backwards as Sunday July 2nd 1978 it marks the last day of an age-old method of printing in this composing area but you are now witnessing will exist after tonight only as a film historic record for the century of the Linotype machine is nearing its end using 535 degree molten lead it sets solid lines of type called cut pipe gas in newspaper column wheels now cooled a printers hands prepare the lines for insertion into a column of the page headlines are still set by hand with type stored in traditional California cases and in time-worn Ludlow cabinets by morning relics of the past letter by letter the printer forms the words in his composing stick in the same way that shootin Berg the first printer of the western world did more than five centuries ago brass moulds of letters are assembled in a different composing stick also for headlines inside this ludlow machine which was invented a quarter of a century after the Linotype they will be cast from liquid lead to form a solid slug of type by tomorrow this Ludlow too will be a museum piece these steel tables for page make up are called printers stones they have been gradually abandoned over the past months a radical change over has taken place for a new era of computerized electronic automated and cold type portal technology has begun it started in the brightly lit area beyond these two dark pulp of discarded Linotype machines now lined up for shipment they have been the old reliables here for decades tonight 60 of the once 140 lino types the largest battery of any newspaper in the world are on their final stint before the rush to addition time a makeup man spoke to us about this machine you know a hundred years ago a man named Atma Mergenthaler invented a machine called the Linotype well known by most people but I find that it was the automation of its day the only thing is I think it was the machine that made mass education possible it brought the price of books within a range of the average working person this is the machine over here and it's practically unchanged in 100 years like the other poem and Mergenthaler came back you could probably go over to that machine sit down and set up a couple of galleries to type without any problems at all if there were any problems as far as mixing machine I'm sure he could get up and fix it but that's how long that machine is whereas at 100 years it all begins with this machine really three machines in one assembly casting and redistribution in this portion of the machine we keep these brass mattresses which have a letter punched into their edge in this case the letter M when I press a key these mattresses will fall along this gravity shoot and into the assembler if i press this M you'll see that M come down there it is now when I want to face a word I'll drop in a space band which is a steel wedge it slides up and down and spreads the line to the exact size that I want then a column so that every line is exactly equal to the other in which when we send a line into the casting machine this is what happens if we take these mattresses they'll come down and face against this steel mold hot metal molten lead will be poured into that steel mold this mattress will be faced against here with the mold of the mattress against the top the lead will harden and pick up the image from the inside of this mold and this mattress it will turn around through here it will harden it will be trimmed and it will be ejected right here now let's watch a line go in this was just about ready going across now the bands are spreading a line out now the line is being pumped in to hot lettuce hardening now it's being trimmed and here's your new line type but the real machine is in the back it was a watchmaker who invented it this uniquely shaped eccentric cam is the heart of his entire system as it rotates it programs all the intricate operations of this automatic producer of type for the composing of the paper it makes the Linotype machine run like a huge wound up clock ticking with perfect precision in the meantime these mattresses have been redistributed and transferred into those magazines and we can use them again and again this story is about finished now we can take it over to the bank to get a galley proof send it into the proof room for proofreading and when we're finished with that we'll take the type and put it either on a correction bank or maybe directly into the page and wait for the correction these latest machines without keyboards have built-in teletype set of Units instead of fingers on keys perforated tape doesn't work like the old music roll in the player piano this enables one person to monitor three machines at once a solid bar or Pig of lead is lowered into the melting pot to refill it for castor sign language is used among the papers many deaf printers instead of three lines a minute the old manual way each machine now sets 14 lines a minute it's as far as mechanical automation could go in the pre electronic age lines of type and picture cuts are made up into full-page forms guided by editors layout sheets where does this thing go look you want to make a box out of it yes we're all done here yeah we want to push it around what do you want to end here with the Box down here we want to make a box out of it and then turn this the closest cooperation is needed between the page editor and the make up together they almost talk the type into the page form coke second cajolá to make it fit as they work against the clock everyone is aware of the time only 40 minutes are left to the nine o'clock first edition deadline and now on pager minutes 40 more pages must be completed locked up in these page forms and ready for the precious metal engravings like these cut down to size and precisely trig the cuts will print up as the drawings and photos you see in the paper everyday the handling of typing cuts is the job of the makeup man while the page editor indicates to him what she wants bleeding the type upside down and backwards he sees a verse image of what will be the final printed page and may even catch an overlooked error the moaning in pain others he had others give it out of you only 14 minutes to go everyone feels the urgency pages are nearing completion makeups - keys to bring type and cuts closely together this keeps pieces from falling out when forms are moved off the stones this page is about done almost finished the editor sends this one on its way the presses away trucks trains and claims must be met to rush the paper to the city to the country and to the world now this one is on its way and the last one to close what is page one okay and one on time and now a work break and also a party for old-time Linotype operator Albert anguish over 49 years being a remember the composable a senior member a priority list a number one man on the priority list well I've been I feel that they called it Fergus I would like it to stay the way they want keep yours yawns machine running how long have you worked here this worker chalks up his sentiments end of an era good while it lasted crying won't help I find it very sad very soon I I planned the new stuff the new processes and all but I've been it printed out for 26 years I've been in this place but 20 years six years apprenticeship 20 years journeyman and these are words that aren't just tossed around that they've always meant something to us brenards I hate to say it it's inevitable that we're gonna go into computers all the knowledge I've acquired over these 26 years it's all locked up in a little box now pull the computer and I think probably most jobs are gonna end up the same way all right there's no doubt about it they're gonna benefit everybody eventually how long it will take I don't know but carefully back on the stone what changes by the news department for the second the late city edition a galley of new type for a late-breaking story is proof tough to be read for accuracy Corrections are checked lines with errors are replaced by corrected lines and page one is ready to go again for the new deadline 11:00 p.m. this time we follow it to the making of a stereotype map the mat is a damp sheet of flexible cardboard a solid steel roller will press it against the hundreds of separate lines and picture cuts blocks together in his page form five minutes to the 11 o'clock deadline the stereotype of taps down a spacing lid so that it won't print the mat will soon be curved and dried into a half cylinder fall from it curved solid lead plates will be cast to fit on the rotary presses the pressure of one ton per square inch is forced upon the cardboard the raised led type presses into the mat forming a mold of recessed litter the mat is now right reading and ready for casting all right down into the stereo casting room three stories below street level in the tiny filter pot led will now pour into the recessed impressions of tight in this curved mat casting starts mammoth machines are up to sale some will go under the hammer at auction a few will be cannibalized for spare parts nine identical page plates to run on nine presses at the same time are cooled in these steel chambers before rolling into the freshmen this operation gonna get it closed up still it closed up in the morning how do you feel about another intervention I knew there are new process for moving into well I think of these machines plus another $100,000 apiece to be junked at a kind of leaves me Wilson you know this is a squad they could go though its lot the automation which the hot metal just as far as the times-pic go how does gonna mean to you personally means I have to learn a new process one after another into the press room warning bells ring when the presses start up page one sports these heavy plates on there sneaking and Criss crossing tracks are making their final run to the nine presses tonight will the new technology just a few hours away make a big change down here a Pressman shrugs it off instead of using LED 40 pound plates and locking them up the instead of using these wets weights what we do is use a plastic plate that only weighs a few ounces those honest owner there's a magnetic bar that holds it on so you just get the hang of putting it on that's all definitely paint one peering reached the last time that a forty pound half cylinder plate of lead will ever again be mounted on these presses scrapp from the previous press run is clear from the conveyance they carry the finished papers up to the street level above now the last reversal from wrong reading type to the final inked right reading printed page it all started on the line at 5:14 upstairs and it ends up and the presses keep rolling through the night this is goodbye generations of Linotype operators have often run their fingers down the first two rows of keys releasing mats that read-a-thon shrug loom this fills out lines that start with keyboard errors the last bad line is discarded at the end of the story motor off a last touch of familiar grass mats light out for good it is the end of the age of hot type mechanical printing and the beginning of the new the computerized coal type the electronic these seasoned printers retrained have made the transition from the old to the new the electronic images of letters that I have just set on this video display screen I'll now send to the computer where it is processed stored and brought back when required for Corrections back to the computer when needed a touch of a keep returns it to the editor it is then changed to the desired column width style size of type and hyphenation followed by further keyboarding of headlines and by lines then to one of five photo type centers each an electronic mirror inside a web of components and wiring does the work of a hundred and forty line of types generating a vast array of electronic type images on a concealed cathode ray tube these images are contacted on two photosensitive paper at a thousand lines a minute emerging from the darkroom the photo sensitized paper has now been transformed by a developing machine into photographic cold type ready for full-page pasted up this productivity leap from 14 to a thousand lines a minute is made possible several floors above by a battery of computers these units contain magnetized memory disks and electronic digital systems which store and process all the data sent from below switches and buttons at a touch bring us into an ever advancing world of automation computerization and programmed electron flow humidity and temperature monitored and controlled around the clock are critical these cabinets hold layered packs of yellow magnetic disks and others like this the disks in operation spin at 140 miles an hour more than eight million words can be stored and sent back by each disk pack and cold type on paper keeps on flowing photo technology has conquered hot metal the typeset paper is cut waxed on the back for adhesion and paste it up on full-page boards on these tables that'll bring the type downs in here will be new type here yes core right that's holding Thank You Jerry right from obituaries to sports to the worlds of business entertainment real estate classified and display advertising and of course the news these color patches will soon be replaced by headlines they are now being cut to exact size no more molten lead he has made it from hot type makeup to coal type paste up the last headline in place ready to go page one will now be transferred electronically through impulses from this laser scanner machine to the plate room underground in a moment the laser beam within will scan the pasted up page this will result in 14-ounce flexible plastic plates made and used down below in the pressroom page after page will be run off on the high speed rotary presses as before and fold it into the finished paper but despite automation computerization and the continuing advances of electronics the central factor is still the work of the human brain the work of human eyes and the work of human hands in creating that powerful element of communication a printed work

Channel: Drinks and Dice

Views: 185,825

Rating: 4.9829121 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 1MGjFKs9bnU

Length: 28min 46sec (1726 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/The_AverageGamer]

Printing looks like it sucked and those people were around way too much molten lead.

That blonde haired dude had a great attitude towards it though, wonder what he did afterwards.

[u/meltingdiamond]

This short won awards when it was released, it's worth watching.

[u/DigNitty]

My grandmother worked with hot type presses. As a kid, I remember her taking pies out of the oven and putting them on the counter quickly, but BARE HANDED.

She was desensitized and calloused from heat.

[u/AyrA_ch]

Original: https://www.nytimes.com/video/insider/100000004687429/farewell-etaoin-shrdlu.html

Version in 720p: https://vimeo.com/127605643

Not sure why the youtube version is such low quality

[u/thumrait]

"Many of the deaf workers....".

Were they deaf before, or from the machines?

[u/oz_moses]

"Hot off the press!"

[u/tangoshukudai]

I think it is funny they still had to layout the page by hand after they inputed the text into the computer. Layout programs weren't invented yet. Another technology that replaced those layout guys.

[u/mikechi2501]

Forgive me if this is a stupid question but is every letter/word/sentence of the New York Times, prior to 1978, cast in lead somewhere? Or after printing they were re-melted down?

[u/BrandonC41]

Linotype machines are super impressive to see in person. They have one at the Museum of Printing. I would love to have one of the turtles they use in this video to move the composed pages.

It’s bananas that they did it this way for 100 years and have only used computers to do it for 40.