| Show Anniversary Edition - Page 3 From quill to computer July 1986 marks the 100th anniversary of the Linotype machine the marvelous typesetting contraption of Thomas Edison called the eighth wonder of the world A spcndid specimen of that wonder still sits in a dusty corner of the Chronicle Progress after serving the business for many years Topaz Relocation Camp refugee Harry T Yasuda (right) was a San Fransisco native who worked the linotype for the Chronicle His modern in 1944 ulie Ward a counterpart of native Ogallala Nebraska operates a MCS 10 For 400 years until that day Ottmar Mergenthalcr made a "line o' type" printing had been done essentially the way Gutenberg set his Bible one character at a time The process was so tedious that the largest daily newspapers were limited to eight pages The “eighth wonder" changed that Within a generation US newspaper circulation leaped from 36 million to 33 million Inexpensive magazines appeared weekly Schoolbooks once handed down as family treasures became availalbe to all Public libraries became commonplace The nation's literacy rate soared A skilled Linotype operator could set four to seven lines of type a minute Which explains why the marvelous machine went as fast as it came An editor can touch a computer key and set the words on his computer screen into photographic type at 1000 lines a minute But those who lived even a portion of the linotype era like Chronicle Progress Editor Sue Dutson remember the acred aroma of molten lead and the facination of watching the spindly arms of the machine swing down to jnatch another line of was like some sort matrices “The of music" Sue remembers She also recalls her publisher father telling of a when a talented young day during World War linotypist named Harry T Yasuda of San Francisco was hired from the Topaz Relocaton Camp for work the newspaper It was then as it is now to for the few remaining operations a thing of facination to watch the hands of a skilled linotypist moving deftly across a keyboard Years later Sue herself would spend many hours at that same keyboard Today the Chroncile Progress is typeset on a computer with full phototypsetting capabilities But Sue finds it hard to part with the old inotype It was too important to our history as it was to our livelihood for many years “I can't bear to pan with it" she said She likes to recall Grandpa Beckwith's comments on the old machine which he obviously appreciated “Mr Linotype has turned out for us in the paper alone ten columns of matter weekly averaging more than 884000 lines 37128000 letters dropped into line molded into type and placed before our readers Counting job work nearly 75000000 letters have been dropped into place In that same length of tunc on pleasure only the Editor and his family have spent on automobiles as follows: a new car $790 a used car 700 a new one $660 a little truck $125 a used car $175 a new car $660 another new one $450 total $3550 and little to show for it One single investment of $2635 in the linotype is still making the family its living still earning the wherewithal to buy more cars" |
