Type casting (typography)
Type casting is a technique for casting the individual letters known as sorts used in hot metal typesetting by pouring molten metal into brass moulds called matrices.
Gutenberg
Woodblock printing had been known in China for centuries. It was innovations in type casting that made for Gutenberg's breakthrough of commercially printing.[1] Although using matrices was a technique known well before his time, Johannes Gutenberg adapted their use to a conveniently adjustable hand mould, enabling one to easily and accurately cast identical multiple instances of any character.
The ultimate product of manual typecasting were letters, known as
Manual casting was a long drawn-out process, but was able to produce precise and consistent excellent results.[1]
Automation
In 1805 Henri Didot of Paris, France patented a type casting machine.[2]
David Bruce invented the first automated type casting machine in 1838, but it was the Monotype and Linotype machines that first effectively speeded up the process.[3]
In 1887, Tolbert Lanston invented the
Although the Linotype (1886) and Intertype (1914) approach to mechanical typesetting produced cast slugs that usually represent the complete line instead of individual characters, it still made use of individual bronze matrices stored in a magazine at the top of the machine, dispensed one per keystroke, assembled, sent to the caster where the slug was cast and the matrices re-distributed using a clever V-shaped keying mechanism.
The Ludlow display typecasting system is similar, in that it is also a linecasting process, although all the typesetting operations (matrix assembly and later distribution) are executed manually by a compositor.
Subsequent typesetting technologies made use of glyphs represented as photographic negatives or digital descriptions.
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4832-8984-7.
- ISBN 9783818501709.
- ISBN 978-1-305-46481-0.