[HN Gopher] California Job Case
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California Job Case
Author : samclemens
Score : 26 points
Date : 2023-08-03 05:05 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| cafard wrote:
| I had heard of the California case, but never seen the layout. It
| is odd that the U and J should be sent to the outskirts based on
| the practice of early English printers: the earliest English
| printers had worked a good three hundred years before anyone was
| setting English text in California.
| deaddodo wrote:
| I don't understand the point you're making.
|
| What would English printers' practices in the 1500s have to do
| with (a specific subset of) American printers in the 1800s?
| They're working off of the same subject language, that doesn't
| necessarily mean they're informed by the former.
|
| It could be differences in Standard American and Queen's
| English, changes in the general language over 300 years,
| differences in lexicography, etc.
| tivert wrote:
| > What would English printers' practices in the 1500s have to
| do with (a specific subset of) American printers in the
| 1800s? They're working off of the same subject language, that
| doesn't necessarily mean they're informed by the former.
|
| According to the article, it's a "modification of a
| previously popular case, the Italic..." It's plausible that
| decisions made in the 1500s carried forward. Sort of like how
| we all type on QUERTY keyboards, even though we're using
| machines without hammers that can jam if we type too fast.
|
| >> It is odd that the U and J should be sent to the outskirts
| based on the practice of early English printers: the earliest
| English printers had worked a good three hundred years before
| anyone was setting English text in California.
|
| > It could be differences in Standard American and Queen's
| English, changes in the general language over 300 years,
| differences in lexicography, etc.
|
| I'm speculating, but I'm pretty sure it's changes in
| orthography.
|
| I think this is what happened:
|
| 1) The order of the capitals in the case (without U/J) was
| carried over from a 1500s-era case.
|
| 2) They were _missing_ from that case because 1500s-era
| printers probably _didn 't use_ capital U/J _at all_. They
| probably followed the convention of using I for J and V for U
| (because Latin, e.g. CORPVS IVRIS CIVILIS for CORPUS JURIS
| CIVILIS, http://www.cyclopaedia.org/1612/1612corpvs.html).
|
| 3) American printers used capital U/J so the designer of
| _this_ case incorporated them in an unobtrusive spot, that
| wouldn 't disrupt the overall flow. Sort of like how newly-
| invented keys are never inserted in the middle of a keyboard,
| only around the edges.
|
| Edit: the placement of U/J after Z appears to date back to at
| least 1683:
| http://www.alembicpress.co.uk/Alembicprs/MXUCASE.HTM.
| cafard wrote:
| Between 1500 and 1845, James I and II had reigned over
| Scotland, England, and Ireland, Samuel Johnson had
| published his dictionary, and the United States had formed
| a "more perfect union". The changes in orthography had
| taken place well before the California case.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| Here's a real pic:
| https://amusetoibien.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/3013112362_...
|
| Source: https://amusetoibien.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/california-
| job...
| rendall wrote:
| I did not understand this sentence:
|
| > _The arrangement of the letters in the California job case
| became so common that a skilled typesetter could "read" the text
| set by another typesetter, just by watching the typesetter remove
| type from the case, seeing from which compartments the letters
| were taken._
|
| Does anyone else understand this? Could you explain, please?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| You could watch someone work and know what words they were
| putting down by where they were reaching, even if you were too
| far away to make out the letters themselves.
| mohaba wrote:
| If you pick the letters strictly in order, it spells out the
| words. If you pick the letters by word, you can guess what word
| as there are only so many words. It'd be like watching a touch
| typist on a unlabeled keyboard for another example.
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| The letters are in specific spots inside the case. Because the
| case layout is a standard, someone very skilled with the
| standard could read the word being typeset because they could
| see which spots were being pulled from for different words...
| since the spot in the case is the letter... you can know the
| letters of the word. This might assume that the letters were
| being pulled in order (or reasonably ordered).
| soupfordummies wrote:
| it's like if you watched someone typing on a qwerty keyboard
| with no letters printed on it but you could still make out the
| words because you know where the keys are.
| gota wrote:
| Did these layouts influence the eventual keyboard layouts we use
| nowadays?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| No. CJ cases make the most common letters have larger
| compartments* (because you'll use more of those letters) and be
| easy to find. The QWERTY keyboard was designed to decrease
| typing speed to avoid jamming the mechanism.
|
| *For lowercase letters only. All CJ capital compartments are
| the same size, in alphabetical order because capitals are much
| more rarely used.
| jonahss wrote:
| somebody made a keyboard using a type case layout:
| https://youtu.be/vdP_sTMOWYo
| 1-6 wrote:
| Type setting has become popular again, except it's known as
| keycaps on a mechanical keyboard
| soupfordummies wrote:
| I thought about this parallel also. Kind of the modern
| equivalent i guess
| jshprentz wrote:
| The good people at The Alembic Press have compiled an extensive
| list of typecase layouts (lays) [1].
|
| The hundreds of variations accomodate different alphabets,
| languages, countries, cabinet sizes, measurement systems,
| contents (upper case, lower case, both, etc.), and other factors.
| All are shallow wood drawers with "egg crate" interlocking
| dividers, easily constructed by craftsmen (and later factories)
| for over five centuries.
|
| [1] http://www.alembicpress.co.uk/Alembicprs/SELCASE.HTM
| lqet wrote:
| > In the previous convention, upper- and lowercase type were kept
| in separate cases, or trays. This is why capital letters are
| called uppercase and the minuscules are lowercase.
| euroderf wrote:
| Any other fans of the Kelsey Printing Press Company here ? Is it
| even possible to buy the rollers any more ? Have there been any
| technological advances that make them more durable, less subject
| to long-term drying out ? What the heck were they even made of ?
| whartung wrote:
| It's curious that 'c' and 'u' are in such large compartments,
| especially compared to 'e' and 't'
| jcranmer wrote:
| From the picture linked in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36990987, it's an
| artifacting of Wikipedia's table layout. It looks like you
| should count all of the cells in the top row as being equal
| width, save the 'e' box's extension into the top row, which is
| two cells wide. So 'c'/'m'/'u' are the same size as 'd'/'n'/'t'
| and 'h'/3-em spaces, 'i'/'o'/'a', 's'/'r', and 2-3em quads,
| with 'e' being larger by the size of 2 digit spaces.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Seems like the Wikipedia illustration is not to scale. They've
| just used an HTML table and let it determine the sizes.
|
| If you look at some photos, the "m" compartment isn't actually
| wider than the others. See
| https://reflexletterpress.com/updated-info-sheets-typesettin...
| and https://amusetoibien.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/california-
| job... .
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(page generated 2023-08-03 23:01 UTC)