My first programs were in Basic on punch tape sent down an acoustic coupler to Imperial College in 1981. I get that it was the end of an era. But just after leaving school, I ran a Linotype photo-setter in the late 1980's - with different spinning optical discs for different fonts, and Hot wax rollers, and Letraset lines. And after university, I worked on computer magazines in W1, which went from photo-setting to Desktop Publish. So I remember an entire era, from start to finish. Boy, do I feel old.
By the early 1980s, Mergenthaler was selling the 202, which used computerized fonts rather than spinning film, and was considerably faster. A type-shop owner I met in New Jersey said that in the spinning film (VIP) days, his company ran the VIP three shifts, graveyard being given over to someone whose third job it was, and who slept beside the machine, which had been rigged to sound an alarm at end of job. Once the 202 came in, the backlog went away.
