Monotype System

The Monotype system is system for printing by hot-metal typesetting from a keyboard. The two most significant differences from the competing Linotype machine are:

A Monotype operator enters text on a Monotype keyboard, on which characters are arranged in the QWERTY arrangement of a conventional typewriter, but with this arrangement repeated multiple times. Thus, the typesetter moves his hands from one group of keys to another to type uppercase or lowercase, small capitals, italic uppercase or italic lowercase, and so on.

When the text nears the right margin, a drum on the keyboard indicates codes which are punched on the paper tape with special keys to indicate how the line is to be justified. The tape is then taken to a Monotype caster, which reads the tape and produces a column of justified type from which the text entered on the keyboard can be printed.

In 1885, the American inventor Tolbert Lanston applied for a patent on a typesetting system that included the basic Monotype keyboard, but which produced a printing surface through a cold-stamping method. In 1890, he filed a subsequent patent, which covered the Monotype caster.

In 1897, the Lanston Monotype Corporation opened a branch in England, which later became an independent company.

A Monotype keyboard allows a keyboard operator to prepare a perforated paper tape, called ribbon, that will direct the casting of type separately from its actual casting. The keyboard on which the operator types is removable, as is a set of keybars under the keys; the keybars, corresponding to each key, determine which holes will be punched in the tape. During operation, two sets of keys and keybars are placed in two side-by-side trays on the keyboard. The keybars are adjustable, so that the coding of the keys can be changed. Keytops also are replaceable, so that the keyboard can be reconfigured.

For the Monotype caster to produce types with the shape of the desired character on their face, a matrix with that character incised in it must be moved to the top of the mold in which the type slug will be cast. This is achieved by placing a rectangular array of brass matrices, each of which is one-fifth inch square, in a holder, called the matrix-case. Originally, it contained 225 matrices, in 15 rows and 15 columns; later versions of the Monotype caster expanded that first to 15 rows and 17 columns (255 matrices), and then to 16 rows and 17 columns (272 matrices).

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