From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: clemc@ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 09:12:28 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Graphic Systems C/A/T phototypesetter In-Reply-To: <47a6ac9c3baa83015ceb79d78755e78d.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com> References: <201312101445.rBAEjMgY005438@stowe.cs.dartmouth.edu> <20131210153705.GF25523@bitmover.com> <47a6ac9c3baa83015ceb79d78755e78d.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com> Message-ID: Steve - great story. Clem On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 5:11 PM, wrote: > 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 > > > > > _______________________________________________ > TUHS mailing list > TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org > https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: