Tour Stop 1: The Linotype
This machine, built in 1917, was used at CHP until 1975. Occasionally, for demonstration purposes, it still gets fired up, and the odour of melting lead wafts through the entire building. The machine, the first to mechanize typesetting, casts solid lines of text from rows of matrices. Each matrix is a little piece of brass into which an impression of a letter has been stamped. The line-composing operation is performed by means of a keyboard similar to a typewriter (its keys organized by letter frequency in the English language). Touching a single key releases a matrix of a character from the magazine that stores up to 15 each of 91 different characters. After a line of letter matrices is assembled, it is transferred mechanically to the mould. Liquid hot lead is forced into the mould against the matrices and hardens almost immediately. The result is a slug of type the desired length of line with raised letters where the molten metal filled the impressions of the letters in the matrices. After it is used for printing, the slug is dumped back into a pot to be melted down for use again.
