Electronic Typesetting Is Herald Of New Era

Chronicle (Levin), 17 September 1949, Page 5

Electronic Typesetting Is Herald Of New Era

Received Friday, 8.50 p.m. NEW YORK, Sept. 15. An electronic device which promiaes to bring a new era of efficiency and saving to the printing industry was demopstrated at' Cambridge (Massachusetts) today, The system when developed for commercial purposes is expected to make ohsolete- presentday line-casting machine^. . The new machine is an automatic typewxiter which "photographs" lines of type on a filrn which in turn can be used to make a printing plate — all in about five minutes. Any competent typist can operate the machine. It has a standard typewriter keyboard and the 'operator merely types as though writing a letter. At the back there is mechanism with a "memory." It stores up letters until a complete line has been punched. When the line is complete the letters are taken electronically from the storage chamber and coded. With the speed of light the letters in the code are transmitted to the decoding device whence come the letters in natural form. They then flash against an unexposed film and are photographed. Within minutes the film can be developed and engraved on a printing plate ready for the presses. All the intermediate steps in a nevspaper or magazine composing room have been.eliminated. The Lithomat Corporation, producers of the machine, claim that "it can set 20 lines per minute or three times as rapidly as the conventional typesetter. The cost of each machine is expected to be less than a typesetter, but a big saving is expected to result from tlie elimination of the intermediate steps in getting the printed word to^ the paper. 0