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Berthold Diatronic

This cool Berthold fototype diatronic typesetting machine was spotted by OnlineLion.

KBD.news
Published December 28, 2022
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This 200 kg piece of vintage hardware with the intriguing keycap profile was spotted by OnlineLion in a museum. As cerement points out, it's a Berthold Fototype Diatronic phototypesetting machine.

We hadn't had that much time left until the museum had to close. But it was in an area that was about printing – OnlineLion.

Here is the Berthold Fototype brochure (in German) on Archive.

Pic:

And on page 3 the Diatronic in all its splendor:

Pic:

The "Fotosatz" part seen in many photos is misleading: it isn't a nameplate but an 8-character display showing the last characters you typed.

Pic: The 8-char display

The 8-char display

This is explained in the brochure, and Marcin Wichary has a tweet about it in his awesome thread on tiny (and expensive) screens from the 70s/80s as well:

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Published on Wed 28th Dec 2022. Featured in KBD #109 (source).


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