One of the web experts said that the 4 with a closed top and no foot was used ONLY in Times New Roman and that Times New Roman was ONLY on computers. Well, I went to the Linotype website and they used Times New Roman, with a four with a closed top and no foot, on Linotypes. Created 1932. http://www.linotype.com/1540/timesnewroman-family.html Admittedly Killian probably did not use a Linotype machine for his memos. Still, we want to kill this story, best to be cautious. As I understand it, Times New Roman is indeed an older font but it was used only in typesetting for newspapers, books and other material printed in printing presses. Linotypes are typesetting macines.
However, until the advent of word processing computers, Times New Roman was never available as a typing font.
For example, the "Old English Text MT" font that is now available on Microsoft Word may have been an older font used in books from, say, one hundred years ago but that particular font may never have been offered to the typist at home or at the office prior to the advent of computer word processors.
As I understand it, Times New Roman was first available as a typing font for home and business use when it was included as a MacIntosh font in 1980.
Finally got my old mentor on the phone, he doesn't remember using Times New Roman back then either but he did use similar fonts on mechanical typesetting machines. Did not think they would look anything like Times New Roman except to the untrained eye.
Thanks for the photo of the linotype machine. Big ugly mother, but for the times it was incredibly far advanced.
I worked in a shop where some of the type was set by hand, and I used to etch halftone photographs onto zinc, which would then be attached to wooden blocks using small nails.
As I recall, the typical zinc cut was 33 dots per inch, although a few presses could handle 65 dots per inch. When I was hand composing four color for pre-press, the smallest dpi (dots per inch) was 200 dpi, and I could just barely see that. I don't have the kind of visual acuity necessary to really do well below 200 dpi.
These days it's all done with computers.