Linotype Typesetting (1960) [video]
That&#x27;s from the Internet Archive, uploaded to YouTube with ads enabled. Internet Archive version, with slightly better audio: [1]<p>The Linotype is dates from 1885.  The basic design didn&#x27;t change much for 90 years.  It wasn&#x27;t the first typesetting machine, but it was much better than its predecessors, and nothing that came later was significantly better. Until typesetting became computerized.<p>A surprisingly small number of people designed the few mechanically complex machines that worked reliably. The Linotype was designed by one of the greats of mechanical design, Ottmar Mergenthaler.<p>Howard Krum designed the Teletype.  People had been trying to build printing telegraphs for half a century, with limited success. Krum got it right, and the basic mechanism didn&#x27;t change from 1926 to 1958.  A Teletype decodes serial data entirely by mechanical means, and Krum figured out how to make that work reliably.<p>William Burroughs built the first good adding machine, in 1884. There had been adding and multiplying machines for over a century, but his had reliability.  When you pulled the handle, you were putting energy into a spring, and the release of the spring, slowed by a dashpot, powered the mechanism consistently. Earlier machines could get wrong answers if operated too fast.  He also came up with the mechanism which causes adding machines and calculators to jam rather than produce wrong answers as they wear out.  There&#x27;s a bail that drops into a slot in the number wheels at the end of a cycle. If the number wheels haven&#x27;t made it to a valid position, as can happen with a worn-out machine, the slots and bail won&#x27;t line up, the bail won&#x27;t drop, and the machine locks up.<p>Henry Maudslay built the first good lathe in 1787.  It&#x27;s in the Kensington Science Museum in London, where I&#x27;ve seen it, and it looks like a lathe from the 20th century.  He got the design and feature set right, and that basic design persisted for centuries.<p>Few people are really good at this. It takes not only 3D design ability, but insight into how to design  so that machines wear well.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jcp60z0E3ls" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=jcp60z0E3ls</a>