From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: scj@yaccman.com (scj@yaccman.com) Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2013 14:11:00 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Graphic Systems C/A/T phototypesetter In-Reply-To: <20131210153705.GF25523@bitmover.com> References: <201312101445.rBAEjMgY005438@stowe.cs.dartmouth.edu> <20131210153705.GF25523@bitmover.com> Message-ID: <47a6ac9c3baa83015ceb79d78755e78d.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com> One of the most amusing and unexpected consequences of phototypesetting was the Unix standard error file (!). After phototypesetting, you had to take a long wide strip of paper and feed it carefully into a smelly, icky machine which eventually (several minutes later) spat out the paper with the printing visible. One afternoon several of us had the same experience -- typesetting something, feeding the paper through the developer, only to find a single, beautifully typeset line: "cannot open file foobar" The grumbles were loud enough and in the presence of the right people, and a couple of days later the standard error file was born... > On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 09:45:22AM -0500, Doug McIlroy wrote: >> >> > The wikipedia description >> > >> > seems pretty accurate although I have never seen the beast myself. >> >> I can confirm the wikipedia description. At Bell Labs, however, we >> did not use paper tape input. As soon as the machine arrived, Joe >> Ossanna bypassed the tape reader so the C/A/T could be driven >> directly from the PDP-11. The manufacturer was astonished. >> >> The only operational difficulty we had was with the separate >> developer. If you didn't hand feed the end of the paper perfectly >> straight into that machine, the paper would tear. Joe Condon >> fixed that by arranging for the canister to sit on rollers so >> it could give when the paper pulled sideways. >> >> The first technical paper that came off the C/A/T drew a query >> from the journal editor, who'd never seen a phototypeset >> manuscript before: had it been published elsewhere? >> >> Doug > > I'm extremely jealous of you. I'm a long time troff fan and would have > loved to have been there during that time. I'm sure it was far less > pleasant than my rose colored glasses have it, but it sure seems like > it was fun. I'd like to have met Joe Ossanna - care to share any stories > about what sort of person, programmer, etc he was? > > That's perhaps a whole different thread, I'd love to shove a beer into > each and every bell labs guy hanging around here and get them talking. > Bell Labs was a huge influence on me, be good to have > Bell-labs-stories.com > or something filled with your memories. > -- > --- > Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com > http://www.bitkeeper.com > _______________________________________________ > TUHS mailing list > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs >