{"id":131,"date":"2003-10-08T08:34:23","date_gmt":"2003-10-08T08:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/?p=131"},"modified":"2003-10-08T08:34:23","modified_gmt":"2003-10-08T08:34:23","slug":"more-cold-type-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/2003\/10\/more-cold-type-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"More cold type tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m amassing people’s favorite stories of the transition from hot type to cold type back in the mid- to late ’70s. (Here’s the first item<\/a>). Here’s one sent along by John McClelland of the journalism faculty at Roosevelt University in Chicago:<\/p>\n

\nThe computer was almost literally hand-cranked one day about 1980 at the
\nPine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial, 25,000 p.m.<\/p>\n

The usually reliable computer system crashed big-time. The AP slow wire
\nstarted spilling out of a dusty old tele-type-setter rig, a paper-tape
\npuncher. Someone with foresight had left it connected.<\/p>\n

As a result, we had enough wire copy on perforated tape to dump straight
\ninto the system’s photo-composer and fill a paper somehow — except for
\ndisplay type and a few urgent local stories. Yes, back then it was a
\nfamily-owned paper that really cared about, gosh, local news.<\/p>\n

In the shop’s relic closet was an old TTS keyboard for punching paper tape
\nby hand.<\/p>\n

Conversion to cold type had let the company buy most of the old-time
\nhot-metal compositors into early retirement, so that day we had a bunch of
\nyoungsters in the shop. Only two people in the entire building had ever even
\ntouched a TTS keyboard. The shop boss set the tricky headlines and captions,
\nand the city editor punched tape for hours to set a few thousand words of
\nlocal news. Talk about sore wrists and fingers!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you have similar tales, please send them along<\/a>. Or ask some of the oldtimers on your desk and send theirs along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m amassing people’s favorite stories of the transition from hot type to cold type back in the mid- to late ’70s. (Here’s the first item). Here’s one sent along by John McClelland of the journalism faculty at Roosevelt University in…<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}