Usage
The core of the system is the MEPS computer, housed within a compact frame approximately 1,016 millimetres (40.0 in) high, 914 millimetres (36.0 in) wide and 864 millimetres (34.0 in) deep. Most of the principal equipment, including circuitry, was built by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Article text is entered on MEPS workstations, composed of a familiar but enlarged typewriter keyboard and a monitor approximately the size of a page from The Watchtower. The keyboard contains a 16-bit microcomputer to control the 182 keys. Draft printing can be sent from the workstation directly to a lineprinter for editorial review or proofreading.
Each key has five shift levels that provide the equivalent of 910 keys to represent commands, characters or combination commands. For complex character sets, MEPS automatically determines, by the position of each character's position in a word or sentence, the correct way to write it, simplifying text entry. For example, a standard Arabic Linotype must have different keys for all variations of the 22 Arabic letters in four different forms. By comparison, MEPS requires only one keystroke for each Arabic letter. The equipment's simplicity of design enables people familiar with typing and composition procedures only about two weeks to become proficient both at text entry and page composition.
After a publication has been composed on the display terminal, it is transferred to the MEPS phototypesetter. The phototypesetter produces an image on photographic paper, using a narrow beam of light, in a manner similar to the operation of a cathode ray tube in a television set. After the photographic paper is processed, it is photographed to produce film that, in turn, is used to make offset printing plates.
Read more about this topic: Multilanguage Electronic Phototypesetting System
Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)