3-009-038 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: Mitchel's type-composing machine, 1862. 'The compositor is in shape a right-angled triangle, placed horizontally, with a keyboard at one of the sides furnished with thirty-nine keys. Each key, when pressed, strikes out a type from one of an equal number of brass slides standing at an incline upon the machine in a row nearly parallel with the keyboard. The type...is placed on end and pushed forward to make room for the next type by means of a notched or serrated wheel...The principle of the machine consists in the combination of bands of lengths and velocities of revolution so varied as to enable the types, at different distances from the wheel, to reach it in the order in which the keys are struck. The compositor is capable of setting up types at the rate of six letters per second, or 21,600 per hour; but, as the human fingers cannot attain to such rapidity, and allowance must be made for the operations of justifying and correcting, the work of an average trained operator will probably not exceed 24,000 or 25,000 ens per day, which is about equal to the work of two men setting up type in the ordinary mode. As each machine can employ two operators, the daily production is about 50,000 ens'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.