in 1983. MT/SC In 1967 the Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer (MT/SC) appeared. It was an output device which played back tapes recorded and edited on the MT/ST. It was physically similar to the MT/ST, but its tape unit had only one tape reader. Built into the desk, instead of the Selectric typewriter, was an IBM Selectric Composer, previously an unautomated device. It used typeballs similar but not interchangeable with those of the Selectric, with three type sizes (10, 12, and 15 characters per inch), fractional interword spacing, bold, italic (but not bold italic), and a variety of serif and sans-serif typefaces, such as Bodoni, Univers, Times Roman, and the like. It produced fully justified, camera-ready output, but the manual version required that each line be typed twice, once to calculate the size of the precise interword spaces and a repeat typing to precisely insert them. The MT/SC automated the Composer, and it printed at approximately the speed of the Selectric typewriter, automating the interword spaces and thus justifying the output. The MT/ST and MT/SC combination (two machines) put the rapid production of camera-ready copy, for the first time, within the budget of a small to medium-sized publisher. However, the need to stop the Composer twice whenever a typeface was changed or italic was used (once to change it and again to change it back), sometimes multiple times in the same sentence, could significantly slow down the procedure. The choice of element to be changed—which typeball would be installed—was manual and used information given to the operator but not encoded in the data stream. Like a typesetter, for example, the operator needed to know that titles are italicized. See also IBM Electromatic Table Printing Machine References External Links Mt St Word processors Computer-related introductions in 1964 Products introduced in 1964 Discontinued products Discontinued media formats