PAGE PRINTERS TO SPEED THE NEWS WILL START TODAY
At 9.30 this morning 31 newspapers will “cut” into a New Zea-land-wide press page-printer network. The significance of the change-over lies in the fact that from today all press news will be transmitted from Wellington direct into sub-editors’ offices. By cutting out the intermediate handling of messages at local telegraph offices, the network will give a much speedier news service.
Centre of the network is Wellington, where trained operators will distribute all Press Association news originating in Wellington, including all cable news, transmitting it direct into sub-editors’ offices. News collected by the newspapers will still be handed in to local telegraph offices. The page-printer itself is really a telegraphic typewriter, for the distribution of the alphabetical keys is identical with that of an ordinary typewriter. Only capitals are used and by using a shift key 51 characters can be brought into use. At the newspaper end, transmission is made direct from this keyboard, though at present, newspapers will transmit only queries, etc., and acknowledgements of the number of messages received. Reception of messages in the news office is completely automatic, the machine printing the message on a paper roll as it is received. The pages can ba torn off as soon as each message is completed and are ready for immediate subediting. Within a matter of minutes a message sent from Wellington can be on the linotype machines of any of the 34 newspaper offices. At the Wellington end the operators first type the messages on a keyboard. This keyboard, however, does not type letters but punches holes in a tape using the standard five-unit telegraph code. The tape is then fed into the transmitter which send out impulses in these groups of five. The page-printers in the newspaper offices have an ingenious system by which the electrical impulses, concerted into mechanical action, operate a typehead to print the message.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19501009.2.26
Bibliographic details
Wanganui Chronicle, 9 October 1950, Page 4
Word Count
319PAGE PRINTERS TO SPEED THE NEWS WILL START TODAY Wanganui Chronicle, 9 October 1950, Page 4
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