Scanning Around With Gene: Back When Typesetting was a Craft
Last week I mentioned that I’m cleaning out my library, and took a look at some books on paste-up and page composition. Today I’m featuring images from a classic book on photo-composition written by John Seybold, who (along with his son Jonathan) was legendary in the typesetting industry and produced a widely-read newsletter that chronicled the transition of composition from hot metal all the way through to modern desktop publishing. Because the book is signed and because of its importance in the history of a field I loved, I’ve decided not to throw this particular volume out, but will put it in a box in the garage along with some other typesetting memorabilia I’ve held onto over the years.
The book Fundamentals of Modern Photo-Composition was published by Seybold in 1979 and represented the state-of-the-art of how type was produced and pages composed using specialized computer-driven machinery. Looking through the book was a trip down memory lane for me – I worked on many of the machines pictured here over the years when I was a typesetter. This was back in the pre-Macintosh days when typesetting was a unique job that required training and a bounty of special skills. Click on any image for a larger version. The third picture below is John Seybold at the keyboard.
Typesetting was both fun and frustrating back in those times – nearly every bit of copy had to be re-keyboarded (there was no Microsoft Word), so typesetters had to be, first and foremost, good typists. In fact, as you’ll see below, many of the early typesetting machines used typewriters as the keyboard input device.
I came into the business before computer memory was a common commodity – we stored our work on punched paper tape that you would physically store with the job in case anything had to be run again (which it almost always did). Paper tape was a unique experience – the sound of the tape punching caused quite a racket, and you new you were really serious when you could read the characters on the tape based on the punch pattern.
It was a real breakthrough when keyboards started being paired with cathode ray tubes so you could actually see what you were typing. Some of these keyboards were “blind” – you didn’t know where line endings were happening or whether type would actually fit. All you could do was put in a line length, point size and other attributes and hope for the best. You would find out quickly when you ran the tape through the typesetting machine just how well you did. I worked on all three of the machines below – a Mergenthaler CorrectTerm, and AKI Ultra Count, and a Compugraphic 7200, which set large headline type.
As I said, screens were pretty “dumb” back then – the best you could hope for was a rough approximation of the actual type output. There was certainly no “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” technology that we’ve now become so accustomed to.
It was a real boon when typesetting machines started getting magnetic memory capabilities – you no longer needed to re-type things when they didn’t come out right or the photo paper got eaten by the processing machine. Memory came, at the beginning, in two forms – 8-inch floppy disks and cassette tapes.
Eventually they developed hard drives to store even larger amounts of copy, but it was expensive. I remember paying nearly $4,000 one time for a 64 Kilobyte memory upgrade. Here is an early multi-platter hard drive.
Eventually computers got more sophisticated and various companies introduced larger systems that could actually compose graphic items in place like borders, reverses, etc., not just type. These units enjoyed a relatively short period of popularity as they came out just before the Macintosh and PostScript changed everything.
I don’t miss all that much about the photo-type era, though some of the machines were fascinating pieces of technology with lots of moving parts and ingenious ways to get type on a piece of paper. But one thing I do miss is the keyboards themselves, which typically had many more keys than today’s units. There was a key for all the various commands and you didn’t have to learn keyboard shortcut combinations. If you wanted to change leading, point size or line length, there was a key for that.
Plus, the other thing I miss about this era is the typesetters themselves. Being a typesetter took a certain personality and disposition. You were constantly dealing with “designers” who could be difficult, and fighting technology every step of the way. Sometimes getting out a few lines of type would bring you to your knees. I often say that I learned to curse being a typesetter – it was just part of the process. That and heavy drinking.
Of course things are much better now and everyone is pretty much a typesetter. There is still room for craftsmanship though (which is often lost today) and fortunately the mechanics have all been worked out smoothly. But for a while typesetting was the Wild West of computing technology and it was very exciting to be part of it.
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I remember well the frustration of dealing with early phototypesetting machines. I had three CompuGraphics, one of them was the first to come out to the West Coast. Since they were made on the East Coast, they were close to the company’s headquarters and a team of repairmen could be dispatched quickly. Three CompuGraphic 7500s were shipped to California to small type shops. Two of them were quickly shipped back (one was shoved out the back door into the alley and the company was called to pick it up before it got rained on). I kept mine, and went through the whole process of changing out every one of its circuit boards in a vain attempt to make it work reliably. It never got completely reliable, but we made enough money with it to pay for it hundreds of times over, so it is forgiven.
I happily missed those photo-type days, as I entered the industry right at the dawn of the “desktop publishing” era.
Look at all that equipment and complexity and capital investment–all to enjoy but a brief blip on the time track of typesetting history!
If anything, it was just an awkward precursor to Adobe Systems’ and Apple’s inventions of Postscript and Laserprinters, respectively.
Postscript has since morphed into PDF, and laserprinters have become pretty much irrelevant.
But typesetting is STILL–and it always WILL be–a craft, no matter how much automation gets injected into the workflow.
Machines will never be able to pick just the right font, nor decide on where to place type and at what size and color to best create the AESTHETICS of type and the finished product.
Aesthetics will NEVER be the province of machines.
Anyone may be able to trow together some type on a page, but only skilled typesetters will be able to make it truly SING.
I actually much prefer today’s typesetting tools created by Adobe Systems in the form its Creative Suite CS6 software tools, running on Apple’s new computers.
They’re unbeatable for power (speed) and control of all of the nuances of the aesthetics of typesetting.
The past is the past. It’s gone. It was dark, ugly, and kinda silly. I don’t miss it.
I never had to actually set type on one of these things, but I do remember having to drive to a typesetter a couple of times a week to pick up output from a shop that actually printed the stuff that our designers had sent to them by modem. Seems like only yesterday, but it has been nearly 30 years. What was cutting edge then seems like something from the dark ages now.
I have been through the whole evolutionary cycle – from solo mimeographing with electronic stencils, to a dedicated typesetting system, with employees, through the early Adobe products when it was necessary to have both Mac and PC versions, to today and CS6 … today is better!
I started in typesetting on the cusp of the transition from hot metal to phototypesetting. I punched tape and then ran it through a Linotype Comet. It was fascinating and truly a skill that probably only a few people alive today still claim.
I recognize almost every piece of equipment in your blog and have set type on most of them (or their Compugraphic equivalent). Those good old days were harder, but I sure miss the sense of accomplishment that went with knowing a craft, rather than just operating WYSIWYG software like everyone and their dog can.
Thanks for the memories!!
Actually I started out working with hot metal when I was editor of my high school newspaper. I learned to proofread the reversed type in the chases upside down. That’s when Linotype meant a line of type at a time. The first photo typesetter I worked with was a Linotype Superquick. Quick is relative since the speed was measured in characters per second. It sounded like a jet plane taking off. We later graduated to the Linotron VIP. that was also a noisy machine, but you could tell by the noises what it was setting. A Mergenthaler rep came to me in my New York office one day and asked me if I thought the could sell a machine that output digital type and then showed me a sheet of output from a Linotron202, their first digital machine. I remarked that they would need special fonts for headline sizes since they were using straight vector encoding, which created ragged characters at large sizes. So they went back and developed Superfonts which were encoded with many more vectors to get around the problem. I remember reading paper tape and splicing in corrections. I think we got one of the first Correcterms they Merg made. I was in typesetters heaven. For the first time I could see on a screen what was typed on the tape and edit it, punching out a clean tape. I remember attending a Lasers in Graphics seminar when Adobe introduced Postscript. At the time they warned that it would be slow at first, but computer technology would catch up and it was more important to be fully capable rather than fast. Sometimes a page would take overnight to process before it output. I also remember what a struggle it was to get decent color separations out of postscript since they neglected addressing it originally. Few people remember that there were a number of page description languages vying for the title when Postscript came out. Once the LaserWriter hit the market, though, it was all over for HP and the other contenders. I remember working with the page layout vendors of the 80s and having to explain kerning to them. I worked closely with Quark to develop version 2 and 3 so that they would live up to my expectations for composition. Ultimately, the tools have been refined so that we can easily create typographic nirvanas that would have been hard to dream of in the 60s when I first started working with type. But a tool is only as capable as its user. I still see straight quotes in headlines and text everywhere that drive me up the wall. And drop caps that aren’t kerned properly, and I don’t know how many other travesties. Perhaps we should teach typographic basics in high school if everyone is going to be a typographer.
I have been in the typesetting/graphic arts business for over 40 years. I started out on a Photon and now I use a Mac. But I still call myself a typesetter.
I was one of the few women (aged 21) who set type on a Linotype machine, followed by a daisy wheel.
It was a true craft when type was set with hot metal and sometimes handset. When typesetting transitioned to photo typography (the systems in your photos), virtually all pros at the time resisted it because the quality was really marginal. It’s actually more of a craft today because of the superior control over every aspect of typesetting. It’s just that now there are so few “typesetters” or typography pros who really understand the “Art” & “Craft” of beautifully set type.
How I have enjoyed this article, and comments. I started out as a typesetter, back in 1982, using a CRTronic, and it looks like on the screen shots was from that very machine!
I remember setting all that code with no idea how it would look until all processed in the dark room. So yes life is better nowadays but the downside is the skills seemed to have gone, because typesetting was not designing, so who teaches the typesetting skills? There are a lot of mistakes out there …
i r 1 … A typesetter, that is.
As usual, I went to “Scanning Around With Gene” article first! I love your articles. My original typesetting experience was with an old, unmaintained, hot metal Lino Model 5.
Just recently, my L-300 imagesetter was retired because of a lightning strike. I went through the whole litany of typesetters along the way. What a trip!
Keep up the good work, Gene. I’ll keep reading. ;-)
Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane…this “old school” typesetter is still on the job, enjoying the ride. 1970, Chicago, Black Dot Lithographers, beta computer everything; hard drive as big as a Cadillac could only hold a couple hundred pages of text, if that; hand-made fonts on glass plates exposed negative film; huge darkroom building needed to process it all ~ think Sears/Wards catalog ~ one of my projects.
Was excited to move to Montana mid-70s and learn that CompuGraphic had entered market here. Ran punch tape machines; parts kits came in hard-sided suitcases (NO support of any kind in the hinterlands); 8″ floppies; font families graduated to filmstrips and film flipped to positive process. Employer converted to Apple in ’86 which, predictably I said would “never replace what typesetters could do”….
Was pleasantly surprised to be wrong, and embraced the change. I actually bought my CG7200 when they were phased out! Could I still run it? Maybe. Do I want to? Not so much!!! Thanks for the little history lesson. Love your column : )
I started in the Printing Industry in about 1979, typesetting was coding typed in with all Characterisitics added (Bold, Italic) etc, Letraset was King and Galleys, Gum, Non-Repro Blue Pencils, Pasteup, Rotatscopes, Bromides, Burnishes, Rollers, T-Squares and drawing boards and Roting Pens of course were the basic tools of the trade. Debbi :)
We had a CompuGraphic Jr (with the one-line orange display) at a small entertainment/news magazine in Florida during the Disco era. When deadlines were tight and nobody could spare a moment to change chemicals in the processor, we prayed that the brown type would shoot OK. I kinda miss those days. I even miss having to change the little white plastic gears for correct letterspacing. Heck, I even miss using a proportion wheel and the puddle of goop under the leaking handheld waxer. The Jr, later combined with a 7200 Headliner, did fine for us, but we dreamed of the day we could move up to — ta-daaa — a CG EDITWRITER!
I was 18 years old in 1969 … I talked my way into an apprenticeship Linotype repairman … every day I had to clear LEAD spurts when the typesetters who sat in air condition room punching “blind paper tape” which was then run on the LINOTYPE machines.
I approached the typesetters and asked them HOW they got their training.
There was a typesetting school in downtown Los Angeles … I drove there the next day.
Basically they taught you how to type on IBM selectric and when you could type 65 WPM on the test they administered every Friday .. you could move off the IBM to the BLIND TAPE PUNCHING machines and this was how I quit my LINOTYPE repair job and got a job a first class printing company in Long Beach … this company used the print the LA FREE PRESS, they had hot type department, and upstairs they had a COLD TYPE department…. This is where I got my first look at the PHOTON 200B
I was hired as a typesetter apprentice in a 4 year ITU (Internation Typesetters Union) apprenticeship.
I completed the 4 year apprenticeship in 2 years. I was 20 years old and full of myself because I was teaching the journeymen. The boss hated giving me 10% raises each 6 months when they were supposed to be 5% increments. One day the Boss sat down on “my” Photon200B and says “I’m gonna give you 5% raise … but in 3 months I will give you the other 5% raise. I told my boss to “get of my machine” and you WILL pay me a 10% increase every 6 months and … to never speak me again in that tone. I ended up making journeyman wages and only 2 years into the apprenticeship …
I demanded to be a journeyman with a “traveling card” – Boss said no way .. you will leave … I said “no I won’t” … so he advanced me to full journeyman … I immediately quit … NEVER COULD STAND TO BE BLACKMAILED … I tramped all over California, Oregon and Washington – you could get work anywhere.
Typesetters were a very independent lot, we could get work anywhere and being in the ITU (first trade union in the USA) – you could show up at any newspaper and work “substitute” as journeymen were were required to HIRE a sub to cover their job any time they wanted off.
I worked SUB and took the Sunday shift at the Fresno Bee – They were converting from hot type to cold type and the only thing done on Sunday shift was the sports section. The Union had to train me on all new equipment which really pissed off the seniority system … Me a 22 year old punk being trained ahead of 40 year journeymen … I found all the books on the system and mastered it all by working a SUNDAY substitute shift.
My Union Brothers tried to sabotage me by leaving the typsetter set up for classifieds.I called the manager and reported the sabotage and he called in the head “mechanic” and told him to spend 8 hours giving all the finer points of the new system …
Man … my UNION bothers were so pissed over that …. ha ha … my wife at the time was also a typesetter “taught by me” … I would apply for a good paying job .. of course they would hired me … I let them take the ad out of the newspaper and then I would tell them I had much more lucative offer … and they would moan and say but “we need a typesetter” … whereby I would recommend my wife … and they always tried to pay her less than me … but we would make them pay equal opportunty wages .. ha ha … so when my wife tried to join the ITU … her applications has to be read before all the union members at 3 union meetings … 1st and 2nd meeting hardly a soul there … the 3rd meeting all my UNION BROTHERS from the BEE were there to DEEP SIX her application … luckily by 1 white marble cast by other union brothers who did not work at the BEE … my enemies from the BEE lost and Cindy got called in the room and was made a UNION Sister and she started working with me the next day at the FRESNO BEE …. ha ha … those were the days … now me and the wife …. made twice as much they did … ha ha … typesetting provided for me from 1969 – 1995 where I purchased my 1st laser printer and Aldus Pagemaker … I used to set up a 40 page booklet for a horse racing track .. the pages would come off the laser head to foot in perfection pagination … IBM 386 and 20 GB hard drive and Aldus Pagemaker … I was in heaven … soon the trade started dying off because “everybody are a typesetter” now …
I had a gal working with me at a shop in 1990 and she said to me “how come you are doing a woman’s job” … I told her HONEY when I first started out typesetting there where NO WOMEN ALLOWED …
I was proud to be a typesetter … people would say WHAT … is a typesetter – Ever since ancient times the rich people would have to pick out a smart slave to do their composition for them … typesetting in Ben Franklin’s days was a true craft and it was always people from the working class would were above average intelligence who worked in the trade.
I ended up being very proficient on every type of typesetting machine built. I was working for a shop in San Diego in 1985. The shop ower JIM was very impressed with my work. I told him that if he had purchased a compEdit from Varityper … we would have finished this big job 5 days earlier. He said “they are having a SHOW at the airport this weekend … you want to go with me and help me pick out the new machine.
We went to the show and i pushed the salesman out the way and sat down and started a demo and JIM was very impressed … little known to me … the Varityper salesman was closely watching me …
After JIM told the salesman he wanted to order the $40,000 CompEdit … the salesman approached me on the side to tell me that he could get a “almost new CompEdit for $12,000 and it came with 40 font disks, extra film magazines and a processor … I told him I thought he was bullsh…ting me … he said he would take me to see it.
We drove to La Jolla and just as he described a beautiful CompEdit with all the accessories you could wish for … I asked the owner why they were selling it and he took me in a room where they had Linotronic digital systems … enought said.
I went and got JIM and showed the CompEdit to him and we (Varitype Salesman and I) sold it to JIM for $30,000 …
The Varityper saleman and I split the difference $30,000-$12,000 = $18,000 profit … yeah I like this job … This became my new occupation selling typesetting equipment from the Varityper company at discount prices that included 3 days of my TRAINING … We sold over 100 machines … all in the other salesman territory …
My inside sales rep would call me and tell me what used machine he had to take in trade on new machine
I would call the prospect and say “i heard you were in the market for a typesetting machine” and because of the huge discounts we could offer … we were making bank. I loved it …..
Love this site … it brought back really funny memories
Michael
1972 – Directed installation of Auto Logic Cathode tube typesetter. State of Wisconsin. Taught 9 “hippies” how/why/when we did certain things in typesetting that never get talked about. Hippies ages…. 18 to 21.. Southern Ill. Univ.. worked for Data Logic, Chicago, Ill… Steve Brown – Owner.
1979 – Off to Texas. Austin. Hart Graphics. Three years later back to Madison, Wi. Created a Data Conversion Service. ALTER TEXT BOX | plus a CROMWELL System. Neither system lasted long. Was involved with two other “gurus”. We created our own code to convert from Word processor “A” to Word processor “B”. Why? The typesetting world was getting flodded with new/different wordprocessors.
[…] an awesome look at what typesetting was like back when it was craft check out https://creativepro.com/scanning-around-gene-back-when-typesetting-was-craft/. We had a monotype viewer to input line spacing, font, font size, line width, all that fun code. […]
I began typesetting on Compugraphic machines which used a spinning film strip for each font. They had three machines, each named after the Marx Brothers. But I first used a “Redactor,” roughly parallel to the IBM Mag Card, except that the Redactor used cassette tapes. In both cases, the output was on a Selectric typewriter. I learned the Redactor in 1977. I was just trying to remember some of the Compugraphic coding–all I can remember is that you started out setting your parameters, which I seem to recall included the area (page width), font, point size, leading and “band-width.” I have to say that I was never afraid of HTML coding after having learned that system. I remember when the “preview” came out–a real man (or woman) didn’t need to use one.
One summer my mother brought me to her office where I used a “Varityper”. I wound up as a typesetter in New York City at the tail end of linotype and the beginning of cold type, (after the selectric composer) and the first machine was a Mergenthaler 32K output device and AKI paper tape input. Commands were like BELL L for line length in picas, BELL P for point size, and it had macros for storing, say, headline characteristics. With this knowledge when I wanted to move to the West Coast I got a job offer without an on-site interview to set up Graphic Arts Center in Portland Oregon. By 1980 I could see the writing on the wall for typesetting, and got a computer science degree which took me to Sun Microsystems (employee # 146) just as Adobe took off. I’ve always loved type.
Does anyone recall the Linotype-Paul 505 photo-typsetter with raster scanning; and a computer controlling unit? They were made at Kingsbury in London.