- Transitional
Technologies
"A lot of time could be saved if we would wait to read the history books - instead of the the daily newspapers."
- -Anonymous
In humankind's march of progress, there have been periods where a particular technology held dominance for significant period. With the possible exceptions of fire, the wheel, and the book - most technologies are, in time, replaced with the new and improved.
Until recently, a technology might be the dominate process for decades or even centuries. The period between one dominate technology and the rise of the next dominate technology in the past was seldom overnight. For example, one could not tell an exact day that the automobile replaced the horse and buggy.
The gap between the decline of one significant process and the rise of another leads to relatively short lived "transitional technologies." A transitional technology is a machine, process, or adaption that bridges the gap between the old and the radically new. It might be an "add on" to the old to make it more competitive. It might be a short-lived competitive technology that will loose out to the next new and revolutionary process.
It is harder to recognize a transitional technology while it is currently in use. It is easier to spot a transitional technology in the history books than the trade journals. We get busy looking at the marvelous details of the weave of our buggy whips and don't see Henry Ford buzzing past us.
Here are three examples of transitional technologies from the past.
- There were over 100 patents on type setting machines that proceeded or were contemporaries of the Linotype and Monotype. The Linotype and the Monotype were developed at a time when printing press speeds were creating more demand for type than could be filled with handset type.
The unsuccessful machines were mostly "setting" devices used to assemble foundry type. The inventors were stuck in the mind set of building upon the current technology. They, through various ways, attempted to speed up the current process.
What set the Linotype and Monotype apart from most of their rivals was that they were "casting" machines, not just type assembly devices. They cast an entirely new type for each job from a mold. All of the other inventions so tediously developed and passionately promoted were quickly forgotten.
- The "Type-O-Writer"was a Linotype
attachment. The Linotype rapidly achieved dominance
in newspapers and commercial printing as the preferred
method of acquiring type. Its strange keyboard of ninety
keys was radically different from the standard typewriter
or computer keyboard layout of today.
It took special training and experience to become a skilled Linotype operator partially because of the keyboard arrangement. The electronic "Type-O-Writer" keyboard was developed to make the Linotype "user friendly." It was a standard typewriter keyboard that replaced the Linotype "etaoin shrdlu" keyboard layout.
Phototypesetting machines, with typewriter keyboards, began to replace the Linotype entirely. The Type-O-Writer never caught on.
- The "Britetype" process was conceived as a
photo conversion process. When the photo-offset
lithographic printing began to become a process of
preferred use, there wasn't a fast photo typesetting
process.
The common way of setting type for photo-offset was to set metal type, ink it, and pull a "repo" or reproduction proof. After the ink dried, it could be included in the "pasteup" and photographed to produced the negative. The negative was used to make the lithographic plate.
Britetype used a heavy-duty camera copy board. The type was locked into the copy holder, covered with a black powder and rubbed to make the raised typeface shine and the recessed non-image areas dark in contrast. The entire page of type was photographed to make the negative. The bulky process was only slightly quicker than other methods and was replaced by more direct photo typesetting methods.
- How will our present era of technology be read in
history books. What will be the transitional technologies
of today? What is the old technology? What is the future
technology and what will be the transitional technology
that bridges the gap? Send me your comments and they may
be included in a future column.
Copyright (C) 1999 by Frank Granger
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