Before the Linotype, newspaper type was set manually, one letter at a time, which severely limited production speed and the number of pages a newspaper could produce daily. Otto Merganthaler's Linotype machine (1884) revolutionised this by casting entire lines of type at once using hot lead — hence the era of “hot lead” typesetting. This dramatically increased typesetting speed, enabling newspapers to produce far more content in less time. The Linotype remained in widespread use in the printing industry until the 1980s, when computerised pagination finally superseded it. The L.A. Times was notable for automating Linotype operations in 1962 using perforated tape, which reduced the manual time spent on hyphenation and justification. The machine was a critical enabling technology for the mass-circulation newspaper industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.