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An old typesetter once told me about a joke they played on newbies. They told them to closely look for the "lead lice" in a freshly set frame of types. When the apprentices had their faces real close to it, they'd compress the whole shebang together and residual ink would be squirting out from between the individual types. Thus creating freckles or "lead lice".

Hopefully I got some of the jargon right. Typesetters use so many unconventional words and phrases, at least here in Germany.

An old typesetter once told me about a joke they played on newbies. They told them to closely look for the "lead lice" in a freshly set frame of types. When the apprentices had their faces real close to it, they'd compress the whole shebang together and residual ink would be squirting out from between the individual types. Thus creating freckles or "lead lice". Hopefully I got some of the jargon right. Typesetters use so many unconventional words and phrases, at least here in Germany.
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[–] • 1 pt

Lin-O-Type was, and still is an amazing piece of machinery. Casting letters on the fly from what's essentially an exotic solder blend.

I can see why the operators thought they would never be replaced.

[–] • 1 pt

Very rewarding watch and Linos are something I've always been interested in because of the stories the old dude (RIP) told me.

But I was talking about the relative crudity of the IT systems the 'modern' process used :)

[–] • 1 pt

Oh yes. The film-exposure system was quite innovative, but terribly primitive. But it reduced the skill needed to actually make the type itself a little and removed some of the (costly) human from the equation.

Now we don't even have that. AI writes the story, sends it to an automated publishing system, and that posts it online.