Frank Romano asks ‘What Is This?’ Patrick of Markzware ‘Answers!’
Font diskette for an Itek 1200/1400 phototypesetter
Last week, Frank Romano posted a video blog on Whattheythink.com entitled ‘How Online Content is Changing Print.’ He concluded by holding an item and asking ‘What is this?’
There were 120 respondents.
One correct answer – which is – a font disk for an Itek phototypesetter!
My reward – a copy of the 2oth edition Pocket Pal(r).
Many years ago, I was a typesetter, familiar with several proprietary typesetting machine languages, including the Itek’s.
My very first experience working on an Itek was at the ‘Horsetrader Magazine.’ Dave Jacobson owned the magazine and also founded the Gutenberg Festival, once the largest print show of its day.
Not long afterwards, I worked for a company in California, ICIB (Insurance Companies Inspection Bureau) typesetting detailed insurance forms. The Itek’s ‘display monitor’ did not reveal the typesetting code ‘graphically.’ Consequently, it took a few times to get the forms to output as conceptualized. My goal was to typeset the forms for outputting as one piece, without the need to ‘paste-up.’ Let’s call it an early form of ‘what you see is what you get,’ or more to the point ‘what you conceptualize is what you get.’ Oftentimes, minor changes were needed, and outputting as one piece helped avoid opaquing the negative. This resulted in less time spent preparing the piece and a higher level of print quality.
I enjoyed working on that Itek – until a better ‘typesetting’ machine changed publishing introducing ‘wysiwyg’… ‘The Apple Macintosh.’
More TK,
Patrick
November 6th, 2009
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