Word: photon
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Ledger is not the only organization which wants the new machine. Some 125 different groups, including the Crimson have obtained options for Photon, which was developed and manufactured in a small factory on Charles Street near Kenmore Square...
...first glance, the Photon machine looke like a compact IBM-type computing machine. It has only three major components: a standard Underwood electric typewriter, a telephone relay system, and a photographing unit. Its basic difference from the conventional method of hot-metal type-setting are two. The keyboard of a typecaster is big and complex. Photon uses the keyboard of a standard electric typewriter. And secondly, the end product is different. The old machine casts individual lines of type. Photon, on the other hand, actually sets no type. It simply reproduces, on film, type in any style and size...
...manipulating the appropriate controls located beside the actual keyboard, the Photon operator can pre-set the width of the column and the style and size of the type. Then he can start touch-typing on the keyboard. When he reaches the minimum number of spaces to fill out the desired width, a bell will ring. Another bell will ring upon reaching the maximum number of characters for one line. When this point has been reached, the machine will lock automatically...
...side of this disc is a light, and on the other the film. Once a line is completed, the light starts picking out the right characters on the disc and projecting them on to the film. This is a very rapid process: the disc on the latest Photon machine, the "200" series, spins through eight revolutions per second, picking out one character each time...
Once the film has been exposed, it is taken out of the Photon machine and developed. Then it is a relatively simple darkroom process to prepare the film for printing, either on an offset or a letter press...