Matrix (printing)

“ The letter a, for instance, stamped in the matrix, sits directly opposite the aperture in the mould which meets the spout of the pump; and when a due proportion of a’s is cast, another matrix with b stamped in it takes its place; and so on throughout the alphabet. Slow work, you say, one at a time? Well, the world is peopled after that fashion; and it fills up fast enough. But just time this machine: it is making small, thin type. Count the type made in a minute. One hundred and seventy-five, you say. One hundred per minute will probably be the average of the ordinary sizes of printing type. ”

“ It was ascertained that when papier-mache matrices were rapidly dried and placed in a mould, separate columns might be cast in them with stereotype metal, type high, planed flat, and finished with sufficient speed to get up the duplicate of a forme of four pages fitted for printing. Steps were taken to adapt these type-high columns to the Applegath Presses, then worked with polygonal chases. When the Hoe machines were introduced, instead of dealing with the separate columns, the papier-mache matrix was taken from the whole page at one operation, by roller-presses constructed for the purpose. ”

“ This ribbon is then taken to the casting machine, which contains a pot for melted metal, a stationary mold for the size of type to be cast, and a matrix-plate. The matrix-plate is about five inches square, and has on its face depressed images or matrices of each letter and character of the font. The perforated strip of paper, when fed to its place, controls the movement of [Pg 26] the matrix-plate, so that the required letter is adjusted exactly in place over the mold, while the melted metal is squirted in to form the type. ”

“ By taking the precaution to cool occasionally a matrix in lead, one can obtain from sixty to eighty types, without being obliged to re-enter the old matrix with the punch of wood, or to make a new matrix from the same punch. For vowels, and for the letters that are more frequently used, it is necessary to increase the number of matrices. But whenever the punch re-enters the matrix, the form of the punch undergoes some alteration from the effects of the pressure and the heat. It often happens that the punch is burned during the little time that it is buried in the hot metal. ”

“ II, p. 421.
331 The description of the more ingenious method of “founding the forms of all the letters of the Latin alphabet, which they called matrices, from which [matrices] they again founded types, either in tin or in brass,” has been denounced by many writers on typography as the confused statement of a man who did not thoroughly understand what he related, and who has reversed the proper order of the process of type-making. A more careful reading will show that Trithemius attempted to describe the process of matrix-making, which is set forth in page 302 of this book. ”

“ At the beginning of this century every type-founder found it expedient to use at times, a type-mould somewhat different in its construction—a mould which, with the matrix, consisted of four detachable pieces. ”

“ Every sign of contraction had to be one whole with the letters to which they belonged to prevent their being shifted during the process of printing. The letters cast from the matrix made in this way had as foot a thin square plate which enclosed the letter but no staff, owing to the mode of making the stamp and the matrix. If the Dutch printer had intended to cast a type with a staff by means of a casting tool, however primitive, he would not have required the thin plate. ”

“ His description is as curious as it is instructive.
...I have often made use of this process, ... which is to sink in lead, a character cut on wood, at the instant when, melted by heat, the lead is about to harden. Matrices of lead made by this process are subsequently justified for height and for lining, like other matrices, Then, by the ordinary process of stereotyping, one may take from this matrix, a duplicate in metal, which, after having been dressed, is replaced in the matrix in lead, and fitted up to a mould. ”

“ Granting that all the earlier works of typography preserved to us are impressions of cast-metal type, there are still differences of opinion, especially among practical printers and type-founders, as to the probable methods employed to cast them. It is considered unlikely, although not impossible, that the invention of printing passed all at once from xylography to the perfect typography of the punch, matrix, and mold. ”

“ Notwithstanding the great advancement which had been made in the art of printing, the invention cannot, by any means, be considered complete, until about the year 1458, when Peter Shœffer contrived a method of casting types in a matrix, or mould. The first book executed with cast metal types was called "Durandi Ralionale Divinorum Officiorum," published in 1459. Only the smaller letters, however, were of this description, all the larger characters which occur, being cut types. ”

“ There is a series of finger keys representing the various characters and spaces, and the machine is so organized that on manipulating the keys it selects the matrices in the order in which their characters are to appear in print, and assembles them in a line, with wedge-shaped spaces or justifiers between the words. The series of matrices thus assembled in line forms a line matrix, or, in other words, a line of female dies adapted to mold or form a line of raised type on a slug cast against the matrices. ”

“ The papier-maché matrix lines resulting from pressure against the characters were secured upon a backing sheet, over this sheet was laid a gridiron frame containing a series of slots, and into these slots type metal was poured by hand to form slugs bearing the characters from which to print. This system was immediately followed by a machine which cast the slugs automatically, one line at a time, from the matrix sheets. ”

“ In order to insert the latest news without taking the time necessary to make up new forms, prepare new matrices, and cast new stereotype plates, a device called the “fudge” is employed. After the first page form of a late edition has been used to make a matrix, about six inches of type is taken out from two columns in the lower left hand corner or the upper right hand corner of the page, and a new matrix and a stereotype plate are made in which this corner is a blank. This new plate with the blank space is then put on the press in place of the regular first page plate. ”

“ From the illustration it will be noted that when the blocks are forced together a square opening remains. Still keeping the blocks together, but sliding down the one at the right, one dimension of the opening does not change, but the other can be varied. This mold has been improved in detail, but not greatly altered in principle down to this day. A fairly satisfactory form of matrix very similar to the one in use today was soon devised. ”

“ At any time when a square root was needed, we would only have to call on the machine for the subroutine of square root. The machine would then consult the right part of its memory and carry out the subroutine for square root.
A third idea, and one of the most interesting, is that the machine should be able to compute its own instructions. For example, consider a program for finding the product of two matrices (see Supplement 2) , each of 100 terms in an array of 10 columns and 10 rows, resulting in a new matrix of 100 terms. The whole program can be made to consist of about 50 orders. ”

“ The modern printer has recourse to the type-founder. The first step in the making of type, according to the old method, is the production of a matrix. The letter is cut on the end of a piece of Matrices for Type. fine steel, forming the punch (fig. 2) , which is afterwards hardened. A separate punch is required for each character in every fount of type, and the making of them requires great care and delicacy in order that the various sorts in a fount may be exactly uniform in width, height and general proportions. ”

“ MATRIX, a word of somewhat wide application, chiefly used in the sense of a bed or enclosing mass in which something is shaped or formed (Late Lat. matrix, womb; in classical Latin matrix was only applied to an animal kept for breeding) . Matrix is thus used of a mould of metal or other substance in which a design or pattern is made in intaglio, and from which an impression in relief is taken. In die-sinking and coining, the matrix is the hardened steel mould from which the die-punches are taken. ”

“ When the ears of the matrices become bent they can be straightened by laying the bent matrix on a perfectly flat surface and with a pair of smooth jawed pliers straighten the matrix so it will lie flat on the surface without rocking. If it becomes necessary to straighten a matrix with a hammer care should be used to use a very light one. ”

“ We have seen in our first chapter what patient researches the discovery necessitated for the Mayence printers in the founding of the character in matrix. True, the punch and the matrix had existed from time immemorial for coins and seals. To engrave in relief a [240] punch of material hard enough to strike a resisting metal, and to run into the space obtained by this blow a melted alloy, which took at its extremity the same form as the punch had given, is, in a few words, the whole economy of the process. ”

“ Different letters require different contortions to “coax” the metal into all the interstices of the matrix; and it is quite possible for the same workman to vary so in his work as to be as “lucky” one day as he is unprofitable the next. In modern times, of course, none but the perfect types ever find their way into the printer’s hands, but in the early days, when, with a perishable matrix, every type cast was of consequence, the censorship would be less severe,39 and types would be allowed to {19} pass into use which differed as much from their original model as they did from one another. ”

“ It is hard to believe that a machine can do all these things so quickly and so accurately.
“When the linotype work is completed the printer places the lines of type on a ‘galley.’ Then the type is covered with ink, a piece of paper is laid on, and a heavy roller passed over it. This impression is called the ‘galley proof.’ If the linotyper has made any mistakes in spelling or printing, they have to be corrected.
“After the ‘galley proofs’ are corrected, the dummy—a blank-page book just the size the magazine will be—is made. ”

“ He then pulls the rope until the matrix, with its weight attached, is elevated to the top of the machine, when it is suddenly allowed to fall. The result is similar to that made on a medal by means of a die, a perfect reproduction of the matrix in relief, which is mounted on a metal stand to type height. The results are excellent, as the plastic metal is forced into the finest lines of the matrix. Duplicates of a block can be thus produced more rapidly than by the ordinary stereotype process ”

“ I may not know much math, but I did check it."
"Even after the Columbia boys said it was nonsense? Well, does it come out right?"
"No, it doesn't! You multiply the inverted matrix by the original and you not only don't get zeros for all elements outside the diagonal, you get a haphazard assortment of ones and twos. Worse still, every element in the diagonal comes out equal to zero. The product of the two matrices is about as different from the identity matrix as anything could be. ”

“ If represents the manner in which vectors are affected by a strain, will represent the manner in which surfaces are affected, and the manner in which volumes are affected. Considerations of this kind do not attach themselves so naturally to the notation nor does the subject admit so free a development with this notation, principally because the symbol refers to a special use of the matrix, and is very much in the way when we want to apply the matrix to other uses, or to subject it to various operations. ”

“ Until well into the 19th century types were cast from the matrices in small hand-moulds, the output from which with a skilful worker was about 400 letters an hour. The mould consisted of two portions fitting closely to each other and containing the matrix with a space to receive the metal for the shank; holding it in his left hand the operator poured Type Casting. in the metal with his right, and after jerking it at arm’s length, to bring the metal well up against the matrix, opened the two halves and threw out the type. ”

“ The ribs of the distributor bar are so arranged as to support each matrix by one or more pairs of teeth until it arrives opposite the mouth of its own magazine channel, where they are interrupted in such a manner that the matrix is unsupported and drops into the magazine for further use. It will thus be apparent that there is a constant circulation of the matrices through the machine, and the composing of one line, the casting of another and the distribution of a third are all carried on at the same time, which adds greatly to the speed of the operation. ”

“ To fix our ideas, I may observe that in geometry the progressive multiplication of points gives successively lines, planes and volumes; the regressive multiplication of planes gives successively lines, points and scalar quantities.
The indeterminate product affords a natural key to the subject of matrices. In fact, a sum of indeterminate products of the second degree represents scalars, which constitute an ordinary or quadratic matrix; a sum of indeterminate products of the third degree represents scalars, which constitute a cubic matrix, etc. ”