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US 4,230,399 AGranted
Photocomposing machine and method
OwnerLouis M. Moyroudinventor
Life of this patent
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OwnerLouis M. Moyroudinventor
Estimating the term…
The machine preferably has a character matrix comprising a rotating drum with character-bearing film strips wrapped around it. The machine has a light source comprising a plurality of flash lamps and fiber-optic light pipes. The light-pipes are arranged in a linear array aligned parallel to the direction of travel of the film strips on the drum. Photographic film is formed into a semi-cylindrical arc and remains stationary during composition of up to a full newspaper page of text before the film is moved to another exposure position. Both character spacing and line spacing are performed by a combination of selective timing of the operation of the flash lamps, a lens and reflector traveling parallel to the film in a beam of collimated light, and a swinging mirror mounted on the axis of the semi-cylinder formed by the film. Both timing slits and base-line reference marks are located on the film strips near each character. The base-line reference marks are detected and used to make automatic corrections of the character image locations to ensure excellent base-alignment of the characters on the film. Other corrections of the character image locations are stored in a memory and are made automatically during composition. Several steps are taken to ensure accurate character spacing. A separate, independent timing circuit is used to time the flashing of each character. Also, the timing is determined by reference only to the timing slit immediately next to the character to be flashed. Furthermore, timing delay is controlled by a clock pulse source whose frequency is controlled by the drum rotation so as to compensate for instantaneous variations in drum speed and/or position. Each film strip bears coded indicia indicating the illumination level required for each different type face on the strip. Automatic adjustments are made to compensate for the divergence of the collimated light towards the end of very long lines of type composition. Special means are provided to compensate for the extension of italics and slanted characters to one side or the other of the normal character area. Means also are provided for the insertion of "pi" characters and forming rules.
In a photocomposing machine, character presentation means for presenting character images at a projection location, said character presentation means including a character matrix bearing characters, a plurality of base-line indicator marks on said matrix, each mark being located near and in fixed relationship to one of said characters, detector means for detecting the location of each of said marks relative to a fixed reference location and producing a corresponding error signal, and correction means for correcting the position of each of said character images in accordance with its corresponding error signal to align each of said images on a common base-line.
A character matrix for photocomposition comprising an elongated support, a plurality of characters aligned on said support with their vertical axes substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of said support, a base-line reference mark for each of said characters, each of said base-line reference marks being located adjacent to and spaced precisely from one of said characters, and being substantially parallel to said longitudinal axis of said support.
A character matrix for photocomposition, said matrix comprising a support, a plurality of characters of a given type face on said support, and coded indicia on said support representing the weight of said type face.
A method of making a character matrix for photocomposition, said method comprising forming characters photographically on a film strip in longitudinal rows with the vertical axes of the characters substantially perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of said strip, and forming simultaneously with each character a base-line reference mark located precisely with respect to said character and extending substantially parallel to said longitudinal axis.
A photocomposing machine including character presentation means for presenting character images at a projection location, said presentation means including a movable character-bearing matrix and illumination means for illuminating said characters to form said images, support means for supporting a recording member having a photosensitive surface, character positioning means including a movable reflector for bringing images of said characters to selected locations on said surface, characterized by a reference mark on said matrix, reference mark detector means for projecting an image of said reference mark towards said reflector and detecting the reflection of said image at the start and at the end of a sequence of said characters, and correction means for correcting the positions of character images reflected by said reflector so that said reference mark image is at substantially the same location at said start and said end of said sequence of characters.
A photocomposing machine including character presentation means for presenting character images at a projection location, said presentation means including a movable character-bearing matrix and illumination means for illuminating said characters to form said images, support means for supporting a recording member having a photosensitive surface, character positioning means including a movable reflector for guiding images of said characters to selected locations on said surface, character enlarging means located between said character presentation means and said movable reflector means, characterized by a reference mark on said matrix, reference mark detector means for projecting an image of said reference mark towards said reflector and detecting the reflection of said image before and after a change of the enlargement ratio of said enlarging means, and correction means for correcting the positions of character images reflected by said reflector so that said reference mark image is at substantially the same location before and after said enlargement ratio change, said correction means comprising an optical micrometer for slightly deflecting said images in a direction such as to perform the required correction.
In a photocomposing machine comprising a character matrix bearing characters, first illumination means for illuminating said characters to form character images, projection means for projecting said character images onto a recording surface, said character matrix bearing a plurality of base-line indicia located near and spaced precisely from said characters, second illumination means for illuminating said base-line indicia, detector means for detecting illumination from said base-line indicia to determine the deviation of said indicia from a pre-determined position, and adjusting means for adjusting the position of each of said images to correct said deviation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.