
The Linotron 303: Typesetter that's part TV set - mmastrac
http://laughtonelectronics.com/oldsite/comm_mfg/commercial_linotron%20303.html
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EvanAnderson
HN discussion of a Bell Labls paper describing the revese engineering of a
Linotron 202 machine:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505349)

There's a good "revisiting" of that paper, too:
[http://www.eprg.org/papers/202paper.pdf](http://www.eprg.org/papers/202paper.pdf)

Edit:

The contrast between the Linotron 303 described in this page, and the 202
described in the Bell Labs memo is interesting. The 303 was introduced in 1974
and uses film-based fonts, whereas the 202, introduced in 1978, uses fonts
that are stored digitally as vectors. I naively assumed that a "303" would be
a newer, more advanced machine than a "202", but that's not the case.

~~~
thawkins
I wrote parts of the the hyphenation package used in the H&J version of the
L202, there where 3 versions , 202 H&j, just send it Cora 5 marked up text and
it would justify, hyphenate and set it. The L 202 slave, which you had to send
it xy positions for each line and wordspacing etc. And the VIP emulator slave
which emulated the older VIP photosetter. There was also a very rare ELA
(exotic language adaptation) version with a large 80gb CDC disk pack on the
side which could do Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Korean. Finally there was
the graphics version, which could set embedded pictures but it had to have
precision photosetter tube with a clean bond on the faceplate otherwise you
got banding.

~~~
tinus_hn
Are you sure that was 80Gb? An 80 Gb disk pack would fill a small room.

~~~
michrassena
Almost certainly a typo. The CDC 877 disk pack was 80MB.

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olivermarks
Amazed you can still buy type scales this century.

[https://www.technicaldrawingequipment.co.uk/Printers-Pica-
Ty...](https://www.technicaldrawingequipment.co.uk/Printers-Pica-Type-
Scale.html)

Used to be a lot of math involved to figure out how deep copy would run before
sending on a motorbike to be typeset. When it returned on another motorbike
there would be anxious moments unrolling the typesetting before paste up in
case you'd made an expensive mistake. Hard to imagine now how much DTP changed
everything

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tivert
Here's a really good video that explains the operating principles of a similar
machine, the Linotron 505, and shows it in action.

[https://vimeo.com/75532294](https://vimeo.com/75532294)

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Taniwha
My Dad left school at 15 to support his family (his dad was Blind) back in the
30s - he got a job as a lino-type operator on one of the wholly mechanical
devices - if you ever get a chance to see how one works take a look -
especially the type-sorter and the justification hardware

