Yep! All that black/orange/green screen and a HUGE developing machine with multiple bath of chemicals to 'print' it all it out. I didn't have to do the cutting up, I would deliver it to the design houses that did all of that though.
I too am not quite sure how I still have my lungs. My boss use to smoke all the time too!
Let's see how did it go? IBM Script with a huge box and teeny screen
[lots of numbers and letters to desrcibe the source file]
[lots of numbers if you wanted a box - thickness and length of line; each line described separately]
[f] number of typeface required
[b/i/] bold etc
[c] colour of text
[cb] colour of background
[i] any indent
[k] and specific kerning (space between letters)
[s] Size of characters
[l] Leading - space between lines
[justif] how text should be justified, RL etc
[w/o] whether to allow any widows or orphan at the end of a line/paragraph
And that's without anything complicated like weird symbols or back kerning
And don't forget all the cancellations [/??]
And these days we just type, click on a button or two ad the machine does all the rest.
Lightweights, one and all 