So how is that any different from modern technology?

-- B. Clay Shannon
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> On Mar 11, 2018, at 7:17 PM, Kevin Mac Donnell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> The machine worked just fine, but only for a few hours at a time. See my 
> review of Richard Hopkins' book on it for some good leads and references. 
> Hopkins is an expert in 19th and early 20th century printing technologies 
> and has the best understanding of the Paige compositor from an engineering 
> standpoint. He is fully capable of getting the one surviving example back in 
> working order, and has a basement full of working antique printing 
> machinery.
> 
> The Mergenthaler (linotype) approached type-setting in a manner that was 
> counter-intuitive and did not attempt to precisely replicate the process 
> previously performed by human hands, but it worked and was reliable for 
> extended periods of time. The Paige compositor tried to replicate each step 
> previously performed by humans, which appealed to Twain's intuitive sense 
> and also aligned with his personal experiences as a type-setter, but it was 
> a failure as a reliable technical or mechanical device. Using a modern 
> analogy, perhaps think of it this way: Would you rather sit in the driver's 
> seat of a self-driving car with automatic sensors at the front back and 
> sides that automatically steers, accelerates and brakes--or, would you 
> prefer to sit in the passenger seat while a robot shaped like a human sits 
> in the driver's seat operating the controls with mechanical arms and legs 
> with all of its sensors in its robotic head that constantly swivels around 
> "reading" the road, the rear-view mirror, the speedometer, etc.? Twain chose 
> the latter, and it wrecked.
> 
> Kevin
> @
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> 
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Carl J. Chimi
> Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2018 6:50 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Paige Typesetter
> 
> I'm just reading the section of the recent edition of the Autobiography in
> which Clemens discusses to some extent his perception of how the typesetter
> worked.  His description is valuable, not only because he had considerable
> experience as a compositor, but also to show how he could have been so taken
> by the machine as to invest so heavily in it.
> 
> I've read descriptions of the machine that range from roughly "hopelessly
> incapable of the task" to "hopelessly complex given the task".  I've seen it
> depicted in the 1940s biopic as a truly silly and ridiculous device.  I
> believe I even saw some version of the actual machine in the basement of the
> Hartford house the first time I visited back in late 1972.  Nothing like the
> Rube Goldberg thing in the movie.  Not being an expert, but being
> mechanically inclined, I remember the machine I saw as "plausible".
> 
> All this has me wondering if anyone has ever written a study of the
> technical aspects of the machine.  How it worked.  How it perhaps drew on
> and related to other technology of that period.  That Clemens said such a
> machine would have to "think" is fascinating, and makes me wonder how Paige
> created something that did apparently work and did, apparently, give the
> illusion of "thinking".
> 
> I figure if anyone has written on this topic, this is the forum that would
> know about it.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Carl
> Grandfather of Olivia