US3918067A

US3918067A - Bifurcated phototypesetter and headline machine

Info

Publication number: US3918067A
Application number: US479615A
Authority: US
Inventors: Thomas Allan Booth
Original assignee: Multigraphics Inc
Current assignee: PREPRESS SOLUTIONS Inc A CORP OF; VARITYPER Inc 11 MT PLEASANT AVE EAST HANOVER NJ A CORP OF
Priority date: 1974-06-17
Filing date: 1974-06-17
Publication date: 1975-11-04
Anticipated expiration: 1992-11-04

Abstract

A bifurcated photocomposing machine for composition of both text and display size type in one machine from one font matrix. The composition of one form may follow the other, or if desired, it is feasible to intermix the text and display size type composition by switching from one to the other.

Description

United States Patent 1191 Booth [451 Nov. 4, 1975 [54] BIFURCATED PHOTOTYPESETTER AND 2,670,665 3/1954 Caldwell 354/13 HEADLINE MACHINE 75 I Th FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 1 mentor omas Alla Booth Flanders 679,930 9/1952 United Kingdom 354/5 [73] Assignee: Addressograph-Multigraph Corporation Cleveland Ohlo Primary Examiner-J0hn M. I-Ioran [22] Filed: June 17, 1974 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Ray S. Pyle [211 App]. No.: 479,615

[57] ABSTRACT (g1 35325;;33/(8); A bifurcated photocomposing machine for p [58] Fieid 4 /5 tion of both text and display size type in one machine 355/49 from one font matrix. The composition of one form may follow the other, or if desired, it is feasible to in- [56] References Cited termix the text and display size type composition by UNITED STATES PATENTS I 3/1937 Salcedo 353/82 switching from one to the other.

4 Claims, 1 Drawing Figure US. Patent Nov. 4, 1975 3 918 067 BIFURCATED PHOTOTYPESETTER AND HEADLINE MACHINE BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Printing has evolved through many stages from the early hand-set type pieces until present technology has made available the rapid composition of photographic plates for offset lithography and similar processes. One of the later developments for speeding the production of printed material and reducing its cost is the art of phototypesetting. Phototypesetting is now coming to the forefront as a major technology for composing printed material for the graphic arts.

There have been many proposals and many successful commercial machines. They are generally classified into two classes. There are high-speed text composing machines, and much slower headline, or display size type typesetting machines. This second group of machines is used for the relatively large headings and display size type emphasis words.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The teaching of the specification herein is that of intervening in the optical system of a typesetting machine to branch off to a photosensitive web other than the text composition sheet. Thus, the machine is a dual function machine in part. By diverting the image normally focused in text composition and enlarging the image onto a narrow web with spacing between each character, headlines of very long extent may be composed. The machine is capable of shifting between headline and text composition at will.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT US. Pat. No. 2,486,406 and: the prior art patents cited thereagainst illustrate an early version of a photographic typecomposing machine wherein a revolving disc carries the matrix characters to be photographed.

There has been 'much development work in the past decade in the art of photocomposition, both in the composition of text as substantially all of the high speed composition machines produce, and in display size composition equipment. An example of a well-known popular display size type production machine is Hecker et al. US. Pat. No. 3,643,558. This machine is of the type that employs a large circular disc, much larger than the text-composing-spinning disc of the photocomposition machines, but has a very similar appearance in that a font of characters is positioned around the periphery of the disc and bears the matrix characters to be photographed. Actually, however, the photography is contact photography and a long strip of photosensitive paper is advanced through a station wherein it is positioned under the peripheral track of the disc font. The appropriate character is rotated into position in the exposure station and a light source is activated to expose the strip of photosensitive paper with the character thus selected. Thereafter the web is advanced another space step until finally the entire headline composition is completed.

The only limitation on length of a headline is the length of a roll of web paper, whereas the normal phototypesetting machine composes in lateral lines across a sheet of approximately 8 inches width and then the sheet is leaded one line and another line of text is composed. Hence, any large headline composed in this manner would be limited to about eight inches.

a photocomposition machine are incapable of sufficient enlargement within the same dimensions of the machine that will produce text. In short, the inefficiences and problems'are much too great for the normal use of one machine in both .text composition and large headline composition.

The single FIGURE of the drawing illustrates the invention in schematic arrangement, because the details of photocomposition or photographic type compositionmachines are sufficiently old and well-known that they need not be set forth in detail, and will be well under stood by those skilled in the photocomposition art. f

A disc 10 is illustrated as the matrix character source, and'although modern photocomposition disc fonts are much more complex with many more characters.than{ the original composition machines, the function of disc 10 is essentially that of a rotating transparency font just as" in the above-referenced early photographic type".

composition machine.

In the known phototypesetting machines, the selec- 1 tion of the character and the flashing of an. illumination source 12. is accomplished by means ofa computer 13.

The computer 13 may also be used to control other at functionsof photocomposition but its primary purpose isto findand project an image of a proper character from the disc 10. l

The commonly used character sourceis a transparv ency disc, butthose skilled in the art may desire to select a transparent disc with opaque characters or an entirely opaque character with .a reflex illumination of characters done in a contrasting color on the surface of the disc. Hence, the invention is not confined to a image of the original object on the 'holder into focus. upon a photosensitive film or sheet, and the FIGURE of the drawing has been selected to illustrate a type of structure which employs a compensator lens 14 together with a .collimating and de-collimating lens set. The compensator lens 14 is a primary lens positioned to gather light rays from the illuminated object and form an aerial image 16 of the object at the focal length of the lens 14.

This invention provides a bifurcated optical and printing system. Therefore, a first composing system comprises a collimating lens 18 and a de-collimating lens 20 optically coupled. This type of optical system is taught by prior art US. Pat. No. 2,670,665 and others before it.

The purpose of the collimating and de-collimating lenses, as taught by US. Pat. No. 2,670,665 is to permit a composition by shifting the de-collimating lens 20 after each exposure of a character in order to provide letter spacing. In order to space the exposed letters one after the other in a line series, amirror 26 is placed in the optical axis of the de-collimating lens 20 and the image directed at a right angle to the optical path. Then, by stepping the lens and the mirror together along the optical axis of the collimating lens 18, the letters are stepped along in a line composition on the plane in which a sheet of photosensitive material 28 is positioned. Normally the sheet 28 is a coated light-sensitive paper fed in leaded steps by a film cassette. Thus,

. 3 a line is composed by stepping the lens and the mirror 26 from left to right until the line is filled, and then returning while the film cartridge leads the photosensitive paper 28 one line.

The composition escapement is accomplished by means of a rack 30 attached to a holding bracket 31 on which the lens 20 and mirror 26 is mounted. A pinion 32 is driven by a motor 34 to step the carriage 31 along in proper escapement dimensions. Usually the motor 34 is a stepper motor which is also controlled by the computer 13.

A-s'econd composing system is embodied in the conc e'ptjofthe invervention of a mirror 36 into the optical system to branch off to a separate photosensitive sheet. Th'inirror 36 is carried on a rod 38, and a second mirror 40 is aligned to receive the reflected image picked upby-the mirror 36. A motor 42 operating through a chain drive 44 will rotate the rod 38 to position the mirrors36-and 40 into an intervening position, or to raise the, mirrors out of the optical system in a parked positionI-When in the operating position, the mirror 36 falls directly into the optical path between the collimating and de-collimating lenses l8 and 20. Hence, if the mirrors are simply interposed with no change in the lens system,'the mirror 40 would reflect a collimated beam which would not be useful without further lenses to decollimate.

However, the intent of the second composing system is to provide a greatly enlarged size character for display. size type and bold insert purposes. Therefore, the lens l4is mounted on a carriage 45 and controlled by a motor 46 directed from computer 13 and the lens 18 is mounted on a carriage 47 driven by a motor 48 by computercontrol.

When the collimating lens was used in the phototypesetter mode, it in combination with the de-collimating lens provides afixed magnification of the variable sized aerial image. When the collimating lens is used alone in the display size type mode, it provides a magnification approximately threetimes that provided by the de-collimating/collimating combination. It is this additional magnification that results in display size type.

The use of the lenses l4 and 18 as a focused lens couple requires a considerably longer focal path than necessary in the standard text composition system. Ac cordingly, a mirror 49 is positioned a distance from the mirror 40 to pick up the image and project that image onto the photosensitive surface of a web 50 extending between a source cassette 52 and a take-up cassette 54.

The web 50 and its associated cassettes are quite similar to the web and cassette referred to in the headliner US. Pat. No. 3,643,558 whereas the wider paper and cassette of the text composition provide photosensitive sheet 28 in composition width as normally employed by machines such as the US. Pat. No. 2,486,406.

Therefore, the complete machine is a convertible phototypesetting and display size tape printing machine having a bifurcated optical and printing system wherein the source matrix of characters to be projected as light and shadow images may be illuminated and picked out by a controller to be projected by a common optical set. A first leg optical branch is used for typesetting text size composition, and a second leg has a photosensitive web cassette with means for step by step advance of a web and means for projecting one character on the web followed by the advance step.

The invention is in the dual nature of the machine and the means by which it is accomplished. The usual use of the second leg will be larger display strips of composition; but the same size or even smaller size, compared to the range of the text composition, is feasible on the long web of the second mode.

What is claimed is: I

1. A convertible phototypesetter and display size type printing machine, comprising:

an original object holder and means to illuminate an object positioned on said holder;

a primary lens positioned to gather light rays from said illuminated object and form an aerial image of the object:

a first composing system, comprising:

1. a collimating and de-collimating lens optically coupled;

2. means to alter the magnification of the aerial image of said object for producing variable size aerial images, and means to maintain said collimating lens its own focal length from the aerial image produced by said primary lens;

3. a mirror in the optical path of said de-collimating lens for bringing the image produced by said primary lens, collimating and de-collimating lenses, to focus on an image plane;

4. a drive system for stepping said image diverter means through a limited distance in said optical path for spacing successive images in a series to produce a line of composition;

a second composing system, comprising:

a mirror and means to selectively interpose said mirror between said collimating lens and de-collimating lens; and

a secondary mirror system to project said image into an image plane separate from said first composing system.

-'2. A convertible phototypesetting machine as defined in claim 1, in which the secondary mirror system produces an image at a fixed location, and a web of photosensitive material is stepped through the image location in character spaced increments to produce a display line of unlimited length.

3. A convertible phototypesetter as defined in claim 1, wherein a lens is positioned in the optical axis of the second composing system to alter the print-out image size.

4. A convertible phototypesetter as defined in claim 1, wherein a diverging lens is positioned in the optical axis of the second composing system to enlarge the print-out image size.

Claims

1. A convertible phototypesetter and display size type printing machine, comprising: an original object holder and means to illuminate an object positioned on said holder; a primary lens positioned to gather light rays from said illuminated object and form an aerial image of the object: a first composing system, comprising: 1. a collimating and de-collimating lens optically coupled; 2. means to alter the magnification of the aerial image of said object for producing variable size aerial images, and means to maintain said collimating lens its own focal length from the aerial image produced by said primary lens; 3. a mirror in the optical path of said decollimating lens for bringing the image Produced by said primary lens, collimating and de-collimating lenses, to focus on an image plane; 4. a drive system for stepping said image diverter means through a limited distance in said optical path for spacing successive images in a series to produce a line of composition; a second composing system, comprising: a mirror and means to selectively interpose said mirror between said collimating lens and de-collimating lens; and a secondary mirror system to project said image into an image plane separate from said first composing system.

2. A convertible phototypesetting machine as defined in claim 1, in which the secondary mirror system produces an image at a fixed location, and a web of photosensitive material is stepped through the image location in character spaced increments to produce a display line of unlimited length.

3. a mirror in the optical path of said decollimating lens for bringing the image Produced by said primary lens, collimating and de-collimating lenses, to focus on an image plane;

4. a drive system for stepping said image diverter means through a limited distance in said optical path for spacing successive images in a series to produce a line of composition; a second composing system, comprising: a mirror and means to selectively interpose said mirror between said collimating lens and de-collimating lens; and a secondary mirror system to project said image into an image plane separate from said first composing system.