
The end of hot metal printing (2015) - smacktoward
https://www.theguardian.com/gnmeducationcentre/2015/mar/03/end-of-hot-metal-printing-gnm-archive-teaching-resource
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rwmj
I've posted this excellent short film about the last night of hot metal
printing at the New York Times a few times here, but it never got any
traction:

[https://vimeo.com/127605643](https://vimeo.com/127605643)

~~~
susam
Indeed an excellent film. Thanks for sharing. I have re-posted this URL as a
story of its own:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806072](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15806072).

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cafard
Forty years ago, I worked for a small magazine company that had its type set
by Linotype. The machines were fascinating to watch. However, I remember the
time that an editor specced an article in "Spartan", then discovered that
10-point Spartan looked smaller than 9-point everything else. There was
nothing to do but have the linotypist key the whole thing again. At that
point, I started to see what advantages there might be to computerization.

~~~
Koshkin
> _what advantages there might be to computerization_

It would be a curious exercise to try and find something that would _not_
benefit from computerization in one way or another.

~~~
lsd5you
Socialising?

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chris_wot
When my company laid off a large number of editorial staff, all you could hear
was banging as each member left.

I fear this tradition will be lost also. Newspapers are still extremely
important and I yearn for the days when you could actually purchase a thick
broadsheet newspaper that didn’t focus on drivel.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I yearn for the days when you could actually purchase a thick broadsheet
> newspaper that did t focus on drivel

This article is about how the newspapers are printed. What gets printed in
them doesn’t change with how you print them.

~~~
lucozade
> What gets printed in them doesn’t change with how you print them

This isn't true. More specifically, if you substantially reduce the cost of
printing, you also reduce the bar to competition.

Similarly, if you substantially reduce the time it takes to get from thought
to publishing, in a competitive market, you'll need to get more thoughts
published.

And the death of hot metal printing, followed by the rise of internet
publishing, has hugely affected what is published, when and by whom.

However, this whole rosy tinted rubbish about hot metal printing is comical.
It was the least efficient, most expensive, nepotistic, ineffectual closed
shop industry. It held back journalism (not exactly a hot bed of activity at
the time either) for years. It almost destroyed the news industry before there
was a reasonable replacement.

Of course "grown men were crying". They could see the end of their short
hours, high pay, minimal work jobs that had been passed down father to son.

The only reason it lasted as long as it did was that there was no effective
competition. Once that changed, costs had to come down and journalists had to
start writing what folk wanted to read not just what they wanted to write. Now
it's a little unfortunate that what most people want to read is celebrity tat
but such is life.

I'd also question just how much better journalism was versus today (although
I'm on shakier ground here). There was a lot less of it, of course, and it is
likely that the signal to noise has dropped appreciably. But most journalism
was filler then as it is now.

Sure we remember the great scoops and uncoverings but that's because we
remember them. I'm sure, in 30 years, we'll recollect Snowden more than Kanye
and look back fondly too.

~~~
Bromskloss
> They could see the end of their short hours, high pay, minimal work jobs
> that had been passed down father to son.

Why were the papers willing to pay for that?

~~~
lucozade
Strikes. The only thing more expensive than expensive printers is no printers.

Printers' unions were very powerful. Maybe not as infamously as teamsters in
the US or miners in the UK but definitely up there. Automation broke them in
the 1980's but not without one hell of a struggle.

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ggm
I loved the Grauniad April fools Day editions of the sixties and seventies.
Beautifully typeset reports of 'flong riots' in the island of San serrife. My
mum had to explain flong was the Papier Mache used to make a stereotype of the
lead type page for copying.

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bitwize
Don't worry, hot metal will live on -- in boutique print shops in Portland, OR
and the Allston neighborhood of Boston, staffed by hipsters with beards longer
than your arm and earlobes stretched out of shape by embedded hoops, running
off pamphlets about why socialist revolution is necessary _now_.

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scoot
I watched this fascinating 5 minute video recently on hot meta printing. It
might have been posted to HN, as it's certainly not the kind of thing I would
normally watch!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3XbItz55YE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3XbItz55YE)

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Koshkin
For the printed book lovers among us, the transition from the letter-press to
the offset printing technique must have been just as unpleasant as is for many
more people switching from physical books to electronic devices.

~~~
Bromskloss
Personally, I'll have nothing other than illuminated manuscript.

~~~
Koshkin
If you were 500 years old, then sure, I'd believe you.

~~~
Bromskloss
I'm getting older by the minute! You just wait!

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hawski
I read this as a "hot meal printing". That would be something.

~~~
contingencies
We're working on it... [http://infinite-food.com/](http://infinite-food.com/)
;)

