On 21/12/2014 11:57, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Don't ask me how I found this, but:
>
> http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/2441/1/Knuth_de_1963.pdf
>
> Anybody have any ideas how this was typeset?
>

Probably with a typewriter with additional Greek letters. Academics used 
them. (Or at least typists did)

> It *looks* like it was written on a typewriter. But that obviously can't
> be true, because typewriters don't have Greek letters and other
> mathematical symbols on them. So... how?
>
> (Incidentally, I bought a book on Galios Theory from Amazon. It was only
> £4 or something. But it's typeset exactly like this! Makes it quite hard
> to read complicated formulas...)

Welcome to the 20th C. The typeset would be hot metal. You can tell by 
the uneven baseline. Pick the book up and look at the page sideways. The 
bottom of the letters are all over the place. You might also find that 
the loops of "y" and "g" are filled in. This is typical of hot metal.

I looked at the page again and I don't think that it was typed and 
scanned. If you find a flaw in one of the letters the flaw should appear 
in all instances of that letter. If it was typed by a typewriter. This 
is not the case with that image. There is a lower case "m" that looks 
skewed and that is not a typewriter fault.
Since the theses is for a Doctoral degree it might have to have been 
published (by a printer) to count.
But anyway there are/were typewriters that used Greek fonts as well as 
the basic English ones.

-- 

Regards
     Stephen

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