#matrix 6

Typography Tuesday

In his article “On Hieroglyphic Type” in Matrix 6, Winter 1986, pp. 116-129, David Wishart, proprietor of the Hayloft Press, writes:

Faced with a passage of Egyptian hieroglyphs (figure 1), the lay reader may well sympathize with the words of Jean-François Champollion: “All these signs, of such different forms, are constantly mixed together and a hieroglyphic inscription looks truly chaotic; nothing relates to anything else; objects most opposed in nature are in direct contact and produce monstrous alliances.”

Champollion, of course, would go on to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822, after which there became a need for hieroglyphic types to publish about Egyptian writing. Wishart again writes:

During the 1840s several founts of hieroglyphic type were designed and cut to expedite the publication of Egyptian texts; . . . one German (known as the Lepsius or Theinhardt fount., with the signs in outline, figure 2) and one French (with the signs solid, figure 3). . . . A fount (the characters solid, in the French manner), was cut in England for the first English-Egyptian Dictionary and Grammar (figure 5, 1867). . . . A century after Champollion’s decipherment, Sir Alan Gardiner . . . decided to commission a fount for his own use (figures 1 and 4) [for his 1927 book Egyptian Grammar].

A Weedy Wood Engraving Wednesday

Indian-born British wood engraver and type compositor Miriam Macgregor is a keen observer of her rural Gloucestershire home. She has also been a principal illustrator and compositor for the Whittington Press since 1977. In 1986, Whittington Press published Macgregor’s small book Weeds in my Garden in an edition of 175 hand-colored copies. This printing of Weeds in my Garden was printed from the original blocks in an edition of 800 copies and inserted into Matrix 6, Winter 1986, between pp. 64 and 65. Macgregor writes:

Weeds in my Garden is an account of the weeds which appeared in my garden when I moved to a near derelict cottage in Whittingham a hundred yards from the Press, a year ago [1985].

Matrix was printed by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

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Decorative Sunday

The great American wood engraver John DePol began making patterns from wood engravings beginning in 1957 for a publication by John Anderson’s Pickering Press, and he continued to devise block-printed patterned papers sporadically for the next 40 years. The patterns shown here were designed and printed specifically for printing historian Renee I. Weber’s article “Woodcut Pattern Papers, and the Engraved Work of John DePol” in Matrix 6, Winter 1986, pp. 130-133.  

One block was cut for each pattern, printed in a number of copies, and pasted up into patterns. A zinc line block of the pattern was then made and printed letterpress from the plate. The finished product had to flow and not appear as though multiple images were pasted together. The patterns printed here include DePol’s geometric, architectural, floral, and swirled designs and are presented as his contribution to the field of decoration.

Matrix was printed by John and Rosalind Randle at the Whittington Press in England, and is a donation from our friend Jerry Buff.

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

PETER FORSTER

British wood engraver Peter Forster died earlier this year; he was 86. On first encountering his engravings, English printer Michael Mitchell wrote:

His engravings were assured, covering a wide range of subjects, wittily observed and based on excellent draughtsmanship, not surprisingly when I learned he had been working as a professional designer (albeit with increasing distaste and paranoia).

Mitchell observed that Forster had a self-deprecating attitude toward his work, with a wry, even surreal sense of humor. To commemorate his life and work, we present a few of Forster’s engravings as printed in Matrix 6, Winter 1986, to accompany his own article “Portrait of the Wood-engraver in Middle Age,” pp. 72-75. The engravings from top to bottom are:

Have any of you have ever turned on a M6 and got the following symptoms: strange sounds out of the voices, droning, no key response besides popping occasionally, calibrate shows that EVERYTHING fails (BAD OSC 7, BAD WAVE 63, BAD RES 63, BAD VCF 63) even if you test the chips and get good signals? 

Hint: You can do Master Edit -> 'D' -> "Ready?" -> Hit "yes" and hold down the 'C' button under the display.  This will print out any errors found during the calibration routine.

Good news is that it is probably just one pin of one chip that caused the whole thing.

So... the CMOS ICs (4051, 4053, etc) get their power from a 10k resistor and diode divider setup between +12v and +5v, however the schematic erroneously shows -5v instead of +5v. 

Because of the resistor this supply will have a small delay before it reaches full 5.6v.  Now, on one particular IC (u711 4053 triple multiplexer) there is an unused channel that has its input tied to +5. 

The +12/-12/+5/-5 will all switch to full power much faster than the divided 5.6v.  What happens is for a short time the 4053 sees a higher voltage at the input than the power rail supplying the chip.  The IC latches up and sinks current, causing the power rail to be pulled down.  The chip will get very warm or even hot.  On the M6 I worked on the 5.6v output read around 3.1v and, because of this, all other CMOS would not function correctly. 

I replaced the 4053 as the current sink would have damaged or killed the chip anyway.  Then I cut the trace to pin 5 which supplied the +5v and connected pin 5 to 6 (GND).  The pins were shorted on the underside of the board.

After doing this modification, everything calibrated right away and plays perfectly.