Editor’s nate: This is the sixth in s series of stories looking at the Introduction of computers Into a working newsroom. Today, The Daily Herald looks at the evolution at newspaper technology. By JOSEPHINE ZIMMERMAN Herald Stat! Writer From hand-set press to satellite land station is a major change for any business and The Daily Herald is celebrating that transition. Many steps in the transition have taken place in the litetime of some Herald employees. Early forerunners of The Daily Herald were printed with hand-operated presses and hand-set type. “Anyone with a press and a few tents of type could go into the business of producing a newspaper.” says N. lAVerl Christensen. Herald Editor Emeritus and author of a comprehensive history of this newspaper. As newspaper publication in Utah Valley progressed. several different papers were started and either laded or were absorbed by others, all of them produced lahorously by hand. In t.he 1880s the Provo Enquirer advertised proudly that it was publishing with a “steam-operated press.” a great innovation ior the time. Later the flat-bed press came into general use. It was on a flat-bed that issues of The Daily Herald were printed at the old location 50 5. 200 W., Provo. Christensen recalls that John Dannenteld. the pressman, stood at the press, feeding the newsprint into it one sheet at a Lime. Invention oi the linotype machine revolutionized printing in its day. With its keyboard system. the linotype enabled an operator to set “sliigs” or lines of type all at one time and Iorm them in hot metal at the rate of 10 lines a minute, The linetype was one of the most complicated machines of its day, with approximately 8,000 separate parts. The old flat-hed gave way to the rotary tube press that spun out newspapers on a continuous roll of newsprint. When Publisher L.B. “Jack” Tackett moved The Daily Herald to its former location at 190 W. 400 N., Provo, the rotary press was dismantled into what Christensen described as “a big mic of pieces. nuts and lts.” then reassembled at the new plant. The linotype still was in use then. but even it was improved with an attachment called a “teletypesetter” which made it possible to set type rapidly and automatically by feeding a coded pertorated paper tape into the machine. National news received from United Pras lnternational was set in this manner. But local news still was set by an operator. It meant a dual system was necessary to produce the paper. l These systems involved the use of hot lead to “cast” the type. 1-lot lead also was poured into matrixes or ”mats” in which illustrations or impressions had been stamped to cast those impressions for printing. The process of producing pictures, too. went through an evolution. In the early days, it was necessary to matte unc engravings of any photoraohs used rar publication. glued Ridge established an engraving business in his home and produced The Herald’s engravings for many years. A revolultionary development in picture gi-oduction came with the airchild Scanagraver. a device that etched a picture on a plastic sheet, with a hot stylus. To reproduce a photograph. the Wefator placed the plcture on one roller and the plastic sheet beside it. One stylus passed horizontally aver the picture, while another slmultaneously burned the image un the plastic sheet. Transfer of pictures by wire also has changed. Originally, pictures were recelved in a form that required development in a dark room. Now the Unltax machine produces pictures of an excellent photographic quality that are camera-ready. The Daily Herald abandoned the hot lead process in N70 when it moved to the present location and went to oifaet printing, or cold type. Oflset asentially ls a photographic proeesa. where the type is produced camera rudy on photographic paper, t.hu1″paxted up” on pages for iinalproductlon. Computerisatim oi newswriting and copy is a retinement of the offset process whidi eliminates one step in newspaper production. Re porters and editors prepare copy on computen, then turn it out to be set in cameraready copy automatically. eliminating the need for people to sd type with a second eyboard. The new satellite earth station allows the Herald to receive state. national and international news via satellite, rather than by teletype through the telephone system as in the put. It brings The Herald into the space age. Teclmolugr is changing so rapidly that no one in the newspaper business believes the present system will be in operation long. New systems already are in the forefront which soon will make today’s modern teduwlngy outdated. Dr. William Porter oi the Brigham Young University Communications Department sees newspapers changing the way newsmen view themselves as dealers in print media only. “Once they got the mmputes into the newsroom. newsmall began no realime that the lnlormatlon already in their computers had greater use than just putting it on paper ami throwing it away.” He said they are realizing the computer information can he packaged in other ways and sold again – that they have a potential electronic product. For example, the product can be delivered to cable TV or put on TV wires and broadcast signals to home TV sets. “I never see them going out of the print business. lt’s nice to he able to clip an article out of the newspaper or take the paper into mother room to read.” He says some intormauon that takes up space in the newspapers and is somewhat outdated by the time it is printed and distributed tu somebody! doorstep will be transmitted, instead, by electronics. Porter says he does not see this method of intomxatlon distribution replacing newer papers – but rather. supple menting them.