A multiprogrammed teleprocessing system for computer typesetting

Abstract

The use of computers to hyphenate and justify printed material is widely accepted in the printing and publishing industry, as well as in institutions conducting research in literary analysis and photocomposition. Newspapers are among those using computers in the production of type cast in lead. The staff of the Los Angeles Times, in collaboration with RCA Corporation, implemented a program for the RCA 301 to accept typewriter by-product paper tape at 1,000 characters per second, to justify and hyphenate lineage of variable font size to newspaper column width, and to produce paper tape output used to drive automatic hot lead linecasters. This set of programs has been supporting typesetting production requirements of over 300,000 lines per week for the past three years. Additional requirements, both present and future, demanded that a more universal use of the computer as a system with teleprocessing capability be implemented. The three principles underlying these requirements were: 1. Immediate recovery capability for operational failure and hardware demise. 2. Centralization of the computational function to allow remote news sources and printing facilities the use of the automatic typesetting resources. 3. Potential to expand the system allowing on-line graphic display terminals and time-sharing with large business applications.