Christian Sörensen

Christian Sørensen, inventor of the "Tacheotype"

Christian Sørensen , also Christian Sörensen (* May 7, 1818 in Copenhagen ; † January 30, 1861 ibid) was typesetter and inventor of the typesetting and filing machine tacheotype.

Life

In 1818 the Dane Christian Sørensen was born into a poor family. When he was 13 years old, he began an apprenticeship as a goldsmith. After his teacher did not want to pay the food, he switched to training as a printer at the age of 15. In 1836 he began to build a typesetting machine . He receives support from the Association for the Promotion of Industry and from the type founder Friedrich Fries, who casts the required letters for him. The development of his machine was suspended in 1848 due to political turmoil and Sørensen was now working as a hand setter . On April 29, 1849, he received a privilege for his tacheotype typesetting and filing machine. Sørensen's endeavors are also supported by the Danish King Christian VIII .

Baron Dircking-Holfeld made the construction of the first tacheotype possible. The machine was shown at the world exhibition in London in 1851 , after which it passed into the possession of the sponsor without success. Sørensen's new financier is FJ Gjövad, printer owner and publisher of Faendreandet . One of the two ordered copies of the machine was shown at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 before it was given to Gjövad. The tacheotype can set and store 50,000 letters a day. This time the invention is appreciated by the public and Napoléon III. gives him the gold medal and flag of honor.

However, the practical use of his machine is difficult. After he was placed in a Parisian printing press, the typesetters threatened with industrial action and the police confiscated his written material because he was not a licensed typographer. First Sørensen gets help from the typesetter Charles Groubenthal and the bookseller Coulon-Pineau, who want to set up a company with him. But then they deceive him and register themselves as inventors in the English patent register. Sørensen's creditors stand up for him and enable the construction of another machine in 1857. However, his invention continues to be unsuccessful, and marketing in other countries fails. He returns to his home country, but here too he cannot enforce the machine. The government of his home country eventually pays off his monetary debt. In order to be able to live, he transfers his gold medal, awarded by Napoleon, to the pawn shop. Sørensen fell ill in December 1860 and died on January 30 of the following year in poverty and need. He is given a solemn funeral and a memorial is erected in his honor.

In 1880 the American engineer Josef Thorne took the tacheotype as a model and built a type setting machine that worked very similarly. He sells 2000 pieces, 50 of which are in Europe. This makes it the most widely used type setting machine.

Services

With the tacheotype, Sørensen has created the first machine for the production of machine sets, which combines the setting and filing machine in one device. The use of differently toothed types for automatic transport and sorting in the machine was a good solution to the difficulties in handling the types. In a modified form, this type of marking was later also used in line setting and casting machines such as the Linotype .

How the tacheotype works

The tacheotype consisted of a kind of table in the shape of a piano, on which a keyboard with 120 keys was attached. In the middle of the table were two inverted funnels, a set and a deposit funnel. There were 120 brass rods on the rim of the funnels. These had a dovetail-like toothing, along which the suitably toothed types were guided. The machine was driven by a pedal . The collected line was excluded by hand . When it is deposited by the machine, the line is pushed over a metal strip with various recesses so that each type falls back into its correct slot thanks to its signature.

literature

• Willi Mengel, Linotype GmbH (Ed.): The battle for the typesetting machine. (= Special print from the trade journal 'Der Druckspiegel' May 1954). Linotype GmbH, Frankfurt am Main 1954.
• Hans-Jürgen Wolf: History of the printing process. A contribution to the history of technology . Historia-Verlag, Elchingen 1992, ISBN 3-9800-257-4-8 .