Ok, OK, I got note from shanks re this subject and sent him a private note declining to be the one to introduce it. He has more courage than I do so he brought it up.
L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace is this Board's motto!
I have no idea about the cipher aspect, being hopeless at codes. That is all new and I will try to follow the answers on that.
Good luck to me.
I ran into the phrase when my Dad first showed me a Linotype machine. Hey, I'm talking me as a toddler in the 1930s. Yes, I am an oldie.
The letters on the keyboard of a Linotype are not set up the same as a typewriter and the men who did typesetting were incredibly fast on their machines but could not transfer the skill, at speed, to a typewriter.
The Linotype makes lines of type from pigs of lead fed into the machine and heated to melt and reformed into letters and lines, the lines become banks of type that are locked into a form which later becomes part of a page. If a typesetter made a mistake he would make an X on the keyboard (starting in upper left) and the type would set as ETAOIN SHRDLU. - (My favorite swear word) - Typesetters' eyes could pick out the X'd line at a glance and remove both it and the line before it where the mistake was made. So there you go, that's my explanation.
As an aside : when visitors came through the typesetting area the operators would often set the persons name in type for them which the typesetter handed to the visitor. The men's hands were toughened to the heat but visitors got a gift of
HOT type and the typesetter got a chuckle and a "gotcha" for slowing the work.
Linotype operators (typesetters) belong to one of the oldest unions. Newspapers were among the first businesses to be "automated." That's another thread for a different board.
If any of you have a newspaper near you that still uses one of the great HOE presses, ask for a tour. You'll learn a bit about how type is made, how the technique was apllied to computers, and you'll have a great time.
That's it. I am off the printing, typesetting thread for good. Why did I ever start with
it? Not another word. No explanations for type lice or buckets of steam or left-handed quion keys, or chocolate kerns, or a 10 point minion, or a woolen offset blanket.
And if shanks wants to go off on horseback and also intoduce the keyboards used by signalmen in WWII well, don't expect a word from me. (I heard that!)
Blessings on you all.
wow
