Regarding David Carlson and today's entry that begins, "Remember "printers," the men and women who ran the linotype machines, made up hot-type pages and later did paste-ups in cold-type printing plants?":
Though I'm just on the far side of 50, I entered the publishing industry just as hot metal was being phased out and cutting edge linofilm technology and "cold type" machines were being introduced. I had the opportunity to view both the new and the old and enjoy the rich history of one while experiencing the technological glamour of the other. Though this memory has fogged a bit, there are a few things I remember - one of which is that the souls who sat at the linotype ("hot metal") machines were called "typesetters" and not "printers."
In fact, according to a mentor of mine who has 30 years over me and came from a bookbinding family, people in the newspaper industry referred to them as "dummies" - as in "we need a dummy over there on the Mergenthaler..."
The newer age of cold type was partly ushered in by the Compugraphic phototypesetter machines which "burned" or imaged the type onto photosensitive paper eliminating the need to squirt hot lead into letter shaped molds which were then formed into "slugs." So we get "cold type" arising from "hot metal."
I've never heard the term "cold-type printing plants" - although digging a little deeper seems to mean going from letterpress to offset printing.
Hope this was helpful.
- Jeff Kopito
