Farewell Etaoin Shrdlu

[Paul Koning]

> On Jun 17, 2020, at 3:25 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> 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.
> 
> As a veteran reader of Fredric Brown, especially "the Enchanted
> Linotype", I have been using ETAOIN SHRDLU to win at Hangman for many
> years... but I'd never seen one working before. It all still seems
> like magic to me. 

They should be fairly easy to find in printing musea. 

There is a pretty detailed description on Wikipedia, with a number of diagrams and photos from a Linotype handbook published by the company in the 1940s.  It also has links to a pair of training movies that show, section by section, how one of these machines works.  Actually, it shows the Intertype, but that's just a Linotype clone made by a lesser-known competitor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine#External_links

Look for "Typesetting: Linotype vocational instruction film".

	paul