Linotype Machine, Rupriikki Media Museum, Tampere

The Linotype did not print anything. It solved the slower problem: setting the type. Ottmar Mergenthaler's machine went into use at the New York Tribune in July 1886; until then every letter had been picked from a case by hand. An operator types at the keyboard, brass matrices (letter molds) drop from the magazine at the top into a line, molten metal is cast against them, and out comes a single solid slug: a "line o' type." The matrices then ride back up and sort themselves into place for reuse. Newspapers, magazines and many books were set this way until phototypesetting took over. This one stands in the Rupriikki Media Museum in Tampere, Finland.