S.F. Chron last paper on earth to paginate

They were still doing paste-up at the San Francisco Chronicle when I moved to the Bay Area in 1999. Now the paper has finally made the jump to pagination. Dan Frost writes about the changes:

The Chronicle this year installed a nearly $8 million digital pagination system, becoming one of the last major daily newspapers to modernize. The old- fashioned composing room with its light boards, wax machines and X-Acto knives will give way to office cubicles, computers and other accoutrements of the 21st century newsroom.



“When I came in, they told me, ‘Don’t even bother. When Linotype’s gone, there won’t be a job,’ ” said Doug Floyd, 60, of Orinda, who started as an apprentice in 1962 and retired in 2000. “It lasted all this time.”

One amusing memory from the old days:

Michael Murphy, 70, of Burlingame, a 38-year veteran, remembered Examiner sportswriter Prescott Sullivan’s terrible handwriting, and his typing wasn’t much better. “He would come back and tell the Linotype operator what he meant, ” Murphy said. “He’d correct errors in his copy as he went along.”