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Digging through the New York Times morgue

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Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#11

Post by tivert »

ghaff wrote: post #9
tivert wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably a Nova 1200 or something like that though there's a lot of other specialized equipment in that film as well. I'm more interested in the terminals. Here are some screenshots from the movie of what I'm talking about: https://imgur.com/a/Vm0LGw4

Hmm. It looks like there are a couple of different models there. I can't make out the specifics too clearly but they don't look to my eye like standard minicomputer terminals like DG would have sold. There are too many extra blocks of keys and lights. FWIW, a few years later, the Post brought in a system that Raytheon designed for them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/06/p... So I'm guessing t…

> So I'm guessing they're something either custom or from one of the early phototypesetting companies.

That was the clue I needed. I think I found a brochure describing somewhat later models.

The AM Verityper Comp/Set 4800 area composition terminal seems to have the same font and similar graphics capabilities of the integrated-keyboard terminal in the close ups:

https://archive.org/details/TNM_AMtext_425_word_processor_wi...

The AMtext 425 seems to have a similar keyboard layout to the two-piece terminals only seen in the wide shots:

https://archive.org/details/TNM_AMtext_425_word_processor_wi...

Looks like they were made by a company called AM Jacquard Systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_Jacquard_Systems

The post has a interesting picture that shows correspondence between the screen display and printed output: https://creativepro.com/scanning-around-gene-back-when-types...

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#12

Post by ghaff »

tivert wrote: post #11
ghaff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. It looks like there are a couple of different models there. I can't make out the specifics too clearly but they don't look to my eye like standard minicomputer terminals like DG would have sold. There are too many extra blocks of keys and lights. FWIW, a few years later, the Post brought in a system that Raytheon designed for them. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/06/p... So I'm guessing t…

> So I'm guessing they're something either custom or from one of the early phototypesetting companies. That was the clue I needed. I think I found a brochure describing somewhat later models. The AM Verityper Comp/Set 4800 area composition terminal seems to have the same font and similar graphics capabilities of the integrated-keyboard terminal in the close ups: https://archive.org/details/TNM_AMtext_425_word_process…

The student newspaper I worked for in the late 70s, we did all the front-end writing and editing on (manual) typewriters and then production staff typed into a big terminal that could output paper tape for the phototypesetter. It looked a lot like that ULTRASystem photograph. Pretty sure I remember the trackball.

(It may also have been hooked up directly through some franken-mess of an Imsai 8080 and other stuff.) Don't remember the details and I never used it directly. Headlines were typed into a different system.

Then everything was pasted up on a light-table.

I think we shot the negatives ourselves as well.

At the time, infrequent publications had someone like ourselves do the production work for them or farmed it out to some local company.

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#13

Post by tivert »

ghaff wrote: post #12
tivert wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I'm guessing they're something either custom or from one of the early phototypesetting companies. That was the clue I needed. I think I found a brochure describing somewhat later models. The AM Verityper Comp/Set 4800 area composition terminal seems to have the same font and similar graphics capabilities of the integrated-keyboard terminal in the close ups: https://archive.org/details/TNM_AMtext_425_word_process…

The student newspaper I worked for in the late 70s, we did all the front-end writing and editing on (manual) typewriters and then production staff typed into a big terminal that could output paper tape for the phototypesetter. It looked a lot like that ULTRASystem photograph. Pretty sure I remember the trackball. (It may also have been hooked up directly through some franken-mess of an Imsai 8080 and other stuff.) Do…

> It looked a lot like that ULTRASystem photograph.

I was a little confused, before I realized that name only appeared in one of photos. After trying to resolve my confusion, I found this, which appears to be a document from 1985 enumerating all these types of systems then in existence:

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201...

It says the

> AM Varityper 4800 (a Harris 2200 product)

There's a few stock image of those in use at the Austin American-Statesman newspaper:

https://www.alamy.com/austin-texas-usa-circa-1980-newspaper-...

https://www.alamy.com/austin-texas-usa-circa1983-backshop-at...

The hardware is different than in the movie, but the software appears to be similar.

Scanning the document, I saw a mention of Interleaf, which some people at my employer were still using until recently (http://www.computernostalgia.net/articles/Interleaf.htm). The comments on that page about the file format ring true, since we decided to not even try conversion and just have the users re-key their documents into our home-grown system for that content.

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#14

Post by ghaff »

tivert wrote: post #13
ghaff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The student newspaper I worked for in the late 70s, we did all the front-end writing and editing on (manual) typewriters and then production staff typed into a big terminal that could output paper tape for the phototypesetter. It looked a lot like that ULTRASystem photograph. Pretty sure I remember the trackball. (It may also have been hooked up directly through some franken-mess of an Imsai 8080 and other stuff.) Do…

> It looked a lot like that ULTRASystem photograph. I was a little confused, before I realized that name only appeared in one of photos. After trying to resolve my confusion, I found this, which appears to be a document from 1985 enumerating all these types of systems then in existence: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201... It says the > AM Varityper 4800 (a Harris 2200 product) There's a fe…

Compugraphic was another big company at the time. I think that was the manufacturer of our headline producing machine. (Another organization on the same floor used a much older and more manual machine for doing display text.) Don't know the system that did the body copy output.

The machine I was thinking of (Page 16 of the PDF https://grhpublic.s3.amazonaws.com/packaging_ebook_second.pd...) is similar but it's definitely different. Interesting that the trackball is on the left side.

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#15

Post by dang »

squirrel6 wrote: post #2

This video, discussed on the blog, is a very fascinating memorialization of when NYT phased out linotype https://vimeo.com/127605643

Related:

Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu (1978) [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31312035 - May 2022 (49 comments)

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)

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)

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#16

Post by shrubble »

tivert wrote: post #4
squirrel6 wrote: post #2

This video, discussed on the blog, is a very fascinating memorialization of when NYT phased out linotype https://vimeo.com/127605643

That film is fantastic. Does anyone know what terminals they're using at the end? It looks like they have two types. At lest one of the computers looks like it's some kind of Data General machine. There's also a shot of what looks like an IBM System 370 front panel like this one: ( https://old.reddit.com/r/vintagecomputing/comments/7l79hs/ra... , https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10266809... ).

Data General made some graphics display terminals. Judging from the rows of extra function keys they look very similar and some of the backend hardware also is DG.

Re: Digging through the New York Times morgue

#18

Post by aristus »

soared wrote: post #17

https://buttondown.imgix.net/images/eb9dbde1-8457-4080-b2ee-... Is this a known style of photography? I've never seen an image like it and its very intriguing!

They just painted over the background around the subjects, for easier compositing later on. These days it's like a long press on your iPhone, but back in the day clipping was a tedious task.
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