Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (1978) [video](archive.org)
archive.org
Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (1978) [video]
https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu
50 comments
Alright, who's gonna make the "I have two sources of the same footage with different flaws and I want to combine the best of both" AI?
The version on Vimeo has vertical scratches running through most frames, which I find a bit distracting. So I prefer the Archive.org version despite it being less sharp and with the hue shift, but "diff'rent strokes" and all.
I can't help but re-watch this entire video in full every time I come across it. What an amazing documentation.
I wonder what next transition looked like to them. I imagine the most significant change was moving from paste ups to digital layouts in the 90s.
I wonder what next transition looked like to them. I imagine the most significant change was moving from paste ups to digital layouts in the 90s.
I'm no expert— but from what I understand, the only really risky part is in the remelter where lead oxides form. When just handling lead type— an alloy of tin, elemental lead, and antimony— unless you actually ingest it (where it can mimic calcium in deleterious way in larger amounts) then it's not very dangerous, so handwashing before eating, etc. is good enough.
What I remember most about this is they never mention the health issues of people constantly working with lead. It’s an interesting documentary, but really beings out that the past is a different country feeling.
1917 book calling out lead exposure and also the lack of physical movement and outdoors/freshwater on the job:
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4426
I kept expecting them to mention the safety benefits of not using lead, but it never came up. Guess they didn't care. Explains why nobody was wearing eye protection, or ear protection. Probably not a lot of steel-toed boots, either.
Not to mention the fact that they often hired already deaf operators because the volume were so deafening.
So this was the primary reason they hired deaf people?
My first programs were in Basic on punch tape sent down an acoustic coupler to Imperial College in 1981. I get that it was the end of an era. But just after leaving school, I ran a Linotype photo-setter in the late 1980's - with different spinning optical discs for different fonts, and Hot wax rollers, and Letraset lines. And after university, I worked on computer magazines in W1, which went from photo-setting to Desktop Publish. So I remember an entire era, from start to finish. Boy, do I feel old.
By the early 1980s, Mergenthaler was selling the 202, which used computerized fonts rather than spinning film, and was considerably faster. A type-shop owner I met in New Jersey said that in the spinning film (VIP) days, his company ran the VIP three shifts, graveyard being given over to someone whose third job it was, and who slept beside the machine, which had been rigged to sound an alarm at end of job. Once the 202 came in, the backlog went away.
14:10 "It's inevitable that we're going to go into computers. All the knowledge I've acquired over these 26 years is all locked up in a little box now, called a computer. And I think probably most jobs are going to end up the same way."
Yes, that sentence stood out, from an emotional and automation point of view.
I'm grateful to the producers of this film for conserving the historic knowledge. Makes me wonder how many areas have gone that were similarly fascinating where no such video was made.
I'm grateful to the producers of this film for conserving the historic knowledge. Makes me wonder how many areas have gone that were similarly fascinating where no such video was made.
And from that, to what stands out is that the knowledge is "locked up". I'd say that resonates with the experience people generally have with computers. New technology tends to be less legible.
What an incredible industrial process. So many people involved, and that was just the type-setting and printing. Incredible pressure too where if the product doesn't make it to market in time, the key morning sales window is missed, and the product becomes obsolete.
I wonder what happened to all this machinery in the end? It was mentioned that it would be auctioned, but I can't imagine the buyer continued to operate this process for much longer. It would be nice to think that they're still operational in a museum somewhere, albeit without the scale and pressure of deadlines.
I wonder what happened to all this machinery in the end? It was mentioned that it would be auctioned, but I can't imagine the buyer continued to operate this process for much longer. It would be nice to think that they're still operational in a museum somewhere, albeit without the scale and pressure of deadlines.
The Columbus Dispatch's lino was in their building, still, as of last year, looking for a museum home. A bunch are in museums - the problem with this machinery and stuff like Heidelbergs and C&Ps is that they were all made around the turn of the century in cast iron and weigh a ton. In the 2000s there was a huge craze to refurbish the old machines and a lot are in cozy print shops, their sizes really useful for greeting cards and wedding invitations. But they're hard to move, maintain, provide adequate ventilation for, get parts for...
>I wonder what happened to all this machinery in the end?
Perhaps it was exported to countries that couldn't afford the latest technology?
There is for example a coal mine in Bosnia that is known among train enthusiasts, because it uses steam locomotives from WWII.
Perhaps it was exported to countries that couldn't afford the latest technology?
There is for example a coal mine in Bosnia that is known among train enthusiasts, because it uses steam locomotives from WWII.
> a coal mine in Bosnia that is known among train enthusiasts
https://www.farrail.com/pages/touren-engl/bosnia-kriegslok-s...
> Perhaps it was exported to countries that couldn't afford the latest technology?
In 1978 that could been happened. By the '90s nobody would bother, though.
https://www.farrail.com/pages/touren-engl/bosnia-kriegslok-s...
> Perhaps it was exported to countries that couldn't afford the latest technology?
In 1978 that could been happened. By the '90s nobody would bother, though.
Excellent documentary.
All that talk of hot lead made me wonder how many workers in there suffered some form of lead poisoning:
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4426
All that talk of hot lead made me wonder how many workers in there suffered some form of lead poisoning:
https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=4426
The olden days were dirty! Never mind that cars were burning leaded gas too. I wonder if the print shop air was actually cleaner than the air in Manhattan back then?
And paint had lead, too.
The machines also had asbestos in them, which was pretty bad.
Interesting that the moveable type era lasted 900 years; the linotype era 100 years, and the paper cut-and-paste era maybe only 20.
For what it's worth, that trend is accelerating in its digital stage. Newspaper CMSs change so frequently, they approach abandonware territory within years and artifacts are left behind.
If you attend any large news site and search for "test" you will find those scraps as evidence of prior CMSs. Like chicago tribune "joe assembler test 1" or latimes "now testing assembler and p2p" or cnn "this is a developer test"
If you attend any large news site and search for "test" you will find those scraps as evidence of prior CMSs. Like chicago tribune "joe assembler test 1" or latimes "now testing assembler and p2p" or cnn "this is a developer test"
Any what was this OS and text editor they used back then? https://i.imgur.com/UygEIkJ.png
Edit: well it's just a terminal not a full PC but seems to be model 1746? That's the closest shot https://i.imgur.com/mGlb2va.png
Edit: well it's just a terminal not a full PC but seems to be model 1746? That's the closest shot https://i.imgur.com/mGlb2va.png
Good question! https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/insider/1966-2016-the-las... mentions an IBM 1620 being installed, but that was all the way back in 1964. The 1978 coverage of switchover day http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1978/07/03/1108... mentions that the Times had spent $17 million each year over the past three years, and that the actual typsetting machine was a Letterflex. But no details of the computer software or hardware, AFAICS.
They showed a Data General nameplate at one point. The panels with blinky light bulbs and a button for "IPL" suggest IBM. Some of the PC boards they showed had 7400 series TTL, and others raw transistors in metal cans. Those might have been just stock footage.
There was another panel with somebody flipping what looked more like Digital Equipment Corp. switches. Normally, you would do that only when booting the machine: you would put in a program by setting switches for a few words in memory -- set, store, set, store,... -- and run that to read in and run a paper tape that itself had just enough code to read and run a boot sector from disk, and off you went.
The notion of buying expensive, read-only memory useful only when you boot was absurd. (You needed the paper tape reader anyway.)
Often there was a stick with notches for the switches. You would flip all the switches up and push the stick against them, pushing some down, and store, then rotate the stick and do it again. Cheap ROM. The program to read paper tape was very short.
There was another panel with somebody flipping what looked more like Digital Equipment Corp. switches. Normally, you would do that only when booting the machine: you would put in a program by setting switches for a few words in memory -- set, store, set, store,... -- and run that to read in and run a paper tape that itself had just enough code to read and run a boot sector from disk, and off you went.
The notion of buying expensive, read-only memory useful only when you boot was absurd. (You needed the paper tape reader anyway.)
Often there was a stick with notches for the switches. You would flip all the switches up and push the stick against them, pushing some down, and store, then rotate the stick and do it again. Cheap ROM. The program to read paper tape was very short.
[deleted]
No idea on the OS, but I'd venture a guess that the text editor was some bespoke application made specifically for the industry, and if you weren't in it, you've never heard of it.
I wonder too. There seems to be some element of WYSIWYG as the font can take different sizes. For 1979, it is pretty advanced. Xerox Bravo was doing this a few years earlier but Xerox was well in advance of its time.
For anyone else that likes the optimism of historical printing films, this is highly recommended: https://printingfilms.com/
A related film to put on your watchlist: “Linotype: The Film”.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130114/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2130114/
Not as compelling as the 1978 video, but I came across this piece on the current process: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/insider/times-printing-pl...
Thanks for the link to this. Fascinating documentary. Lost art & craft of printmaking. When writing LaTeX I often thought about how it translates to traditional typesetting using linotypes. The terminology in digital typesetting has its roots from that craft.
Side Note: I could have started my working life in newsprint as when I were a lad, just out of school in the late 70's and being mad keen on radio and electronics, I applied for a job (didn't get it) as a teleprinter technician at the local newspaper (Doncaster Free Press). These were the electro-mechanical teletypes running 24/7 to capture news "on the wires". I thought I'd be in with a shot as I had my own Creed 7B clacking away in my bedroom - when allowed by my long suffering, but enabling parents!
Side Note: I could have started my working life in newsprint as when I were a lad, just out of school in the late 70's and being mad keen on radio and electronics, I applied for a job (didn't get it) as a teleprinter technician at the local newspaper (Doncaster Free Press). These were the electro-mechanical teletypes running 24/7 to capture news "on the wires". I thought I'd be in with a shot as I had my own Creed 7B clacking away in my bedroom - when allowed by my long suffering, but enabling parents!
Related. Others?
Etaoin Shrdlu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29071164 - Nov 2021 (33 comments)
Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (1978) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23538028 - June 2020 (46 comments)
English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20541263 - July 2019 (10 comments)
1978 – 'Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16907778 - April 2018 (2 comments)
Farewell – ETAOIN SHRDLU (1978) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806072 - Nov 2017 (1 comment)
Farewell – ETAOIN SHRDL: The Last Day of Hot Metal Typesetting at the NY Times - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13070183 - Nov 2016 (1 comment)
Etaoin shrdlu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9958143 - July 2015 (1 comment)
Etaoin Shrdlu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29071164 - Nov 2021 (33 comments)
Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (1978) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23538028 - June 2020 (46 comments)
English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20541263 - July 2019 (10 comments)
1978 – 'Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16907778 - April 2018 (2 comments)
Farewell – ETAOIN SHRDLU (1978) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806072 - Nov 2017 (1 comment)
Farewell – ETAOIN SHRDL: The Last Day of Hot Metal Typesetting at the NY Times - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13070183 - Nov 2016 (1 comment)
Etaoin shrdlu - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9958143 - July 2015 (1 comment)
My father was the PR manager of a publishing house and the print shop of the company was just one block away from where we lived, so I was a frequent visitor there. I was fascinated by the technology and saw the transition from hot lead typesetting to phototypesetting first hand. This documentation will always have a special place in my heart.
At 25:15: "More than 8 million words can be stored and sent back by each disk pack".
Each disk looks the size of a vinyl record, and there are a whole stack of them in a disk pack.
Each disk looks the size of a vinyl record, and there are a whole stack of them in a disk pack.
How did they transfer photographs to the lead casts?
Photographic prints were re-shot through halftone[0] film (or 'screen') producing a 'screened' version of the image, with dots at various sizes instead of continuous tones. The screened image was then used to expose a sensitized plate, which would be developed to produce a half-toned negative in metal. The high spots took ink and carried it to the paper. More dots, more ink -> darker.
Typical newspapers might use a screen with 80 dots per inch because they are running very fast and using cruddy paper. Art printers on shiny clay paper use much finer screens and get results approaching the original prints.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone
Typical newspapers might use a screen with 80 dots per inch because they are running very fast and using cruddy paper. Art printers on shiny clay paper use much finer screens and get results approaching the original prints.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halftone
TIL. The much older predecessor of qwertyuiop.
I knew where "etaoin shrdlu" came from, but I never realized it was vertical, not horizontal.
It's kinda wild how alien the Linotype layout looks compared to a standard QWERTY keyboard, despite them being relatively contemporary with one another.
I think I saw this shared a year or two ago here.
Stressing! Feels like release day.
Vimeo: https://files.catbox.moe/2jzh3z.png
Archive.org: https://files.catbox.moe/470r44.png
https://vimeo.com/127605643 (you can download the raw source upload with yt-dlp)