MI Printing History of Typesetting: Phototypesetters

The first mechanical phototypesetters involved the adaptation of existing typesetters by replacing the metal matrices with matrices carrying the image of the letters and replacing the caster with a photographic unit. The industrial application of this idea resulted in the Fotosetter in 1947, a phototypesetter. The first revolutionary application of this notion was the Lumitype, invented as the Lithomat in 1949 by two Frenchmen, René Higonnet and Louis Moyroud. Executed by phototypesetting, The Marvelous World of Insects was done on their machine in 1953. The first model had an attached keyboard. Later models with a separate keyboard printed more than 28,000 characters per hour. A third generation of phototypesetters appeared in the 1960s, in which all mechanical moving parts were eliminated by omitting the use of light and therefore omitting the moving optical device responsible for operating in its field.

Phototypesetting machines projected characters onto film for offset printing. This "cold type" technology could be used in office environments where "hot metal" machines (the Mergenthaler Linotype, the Harris Intertype and the Monotype) could not. The use of phototypesetting grew rapidly in the 1960s when software was developed to convert marked up copy, usually typed on paper tape, to the codes that controlled the phototypesetters. The Photon Corporation in Cambridge, Mass. developed equipment based on the Lumitype of Higgonet and Moyraud. Mergenthaler produced the Linofilm using a different design and Monotype produced Monophoto. Other companies followed with products that included Alphatype and Varityper.

To provide much greater speeds, the Photon Corporation produced the ZIP 200 machine for the MEDLARS project of the National Library of Medicine and Mergenthaler produced the Linotron. The ZIP 200 could produce text at 600 characters per second using high speed flashes behind plates with images of the characters to be printed. Each character had a separate xenon flash constantly ready to fire. A separate system of optics positioned the image on the page.

An enormous advancement was made by the mid 1960s with the development of equipment that projected the characters onto CRT screens. Alphanumeric Corporation  produced the APS series. Rudolph Hell developed the Digiset machine in Germany. The RCA Graphic Systems Division manufactured this in the U.S. as the Videocomp, later marketed by Information International Inc. Software for mechanical hyphenation was a major component of electronic typesetting.