17 Jun
2020
17 Jun
'20
2:56 p.m.
Kind of OT:
I recall reading on some health forum that in a certain Japanese paint
factory, workers would put dried paint flakes under their tongues and then
spit them out, a-la homeopathically, to make them impervious to the
chemicals. It is believed to work by sending a signal to the gut "to
prepare for this chemical". Not sure if it would have worked on inks but it
may have.
Justin Goldberg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinpaulgoldberg
On Wed, Jun 17, 2020, 4:27 PM Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On 6/17/20 12:25 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu
28min documentary on the last ever edition of the NY Times to be
printed using hot metal -- before they switched to what are now a
quite choice assortment of late-'70s minicomputers. I think I spotted
a PDP, a Data General and some IBM device, but I am no expert in this
era.
When I was in college, I went on a weekend trip with a friend to see
where he worked during the summer. It was a print-shop, complete with
both letterpress and offset--and a Linotype ("pot" heated with natural
gas). The local advertising circular was still set with hot type and I
witnessed the operation of that contraption. Noisy and wonderful.
See the Twilight Zone episode "Printer's Devil" for another sample.
I was told that most newspaper pressmen were alcoholics, as it blunted
the effect of the then-toxic inks used in printing.
Anent ETAOIN: Early on in the formation of the CDC spinoff, ETA
Systems, I asked Neil Lincoln what "ETA" stood for. He related the
story of his son and ETAOIN SHRDLU. Back then, the name of the
supercomputer was referred to as the GF-10; later changed to the ETA-10.
(GF standing for GigaFLOP).
--Chuck