A century ago, the nascent South China Morning Post's decision to buy pioneering new Linotype machines was a masterstroke. A revolutionary technology that automated the typesetting process - whereas before each letter of each word was set by hand - it allowed the paper to be produced faster, and by a smaller staff.
Today, the paper's brand-new publishing system, CCI, is still fresh out of the box, but it is proving no less revolutionary. For the first time, every aspect of the editorial process happens on the same system.
The introduction of CCI this year also serves as a reminder of a smaller milestone in our history: the 25th anniversary of the first computers being ushered through the Post's door. Long gone are the days when editors and reporters would bang out stories on heavy, clacking typewriters. Which is not to say that all the technology changes over the past quarter-century have been plain sailing: with computers came crashes, bugs, stories 'lost' in the system, frustrating delays - and a huge learning curve for staff.
The Post made the quantum leap to computerised publishing in mid-1978 with the American-made Tal-Star system. It was very limited, but allowed journalists to edit and share stories from a 'dumb' video data terminal, then print them out to be mounted on to a page template. Pictures were handled separately and, needless to say, it was all in black and white.
Tal-Star swiftly became infamous in the newsroom for a curious set of red and green 'traffic lights' mounted on the walls. Their main purpose - it seems laughable in today's techno-driven world - was to tell all the editors and reporters about the ups and downs of the system, which was so unstable that at least once or twice a day the red light would flash on, accompanied by an ominous warning 'ding' to signal that the system was having a nervous breakdown. The alarm would bring a squad of crack troops from the Electronic Data Processing department rushing out to help salvage stories and stop them from sliding into electronic oblivion - often a vain struggle.
It would be 30 minutes or so before the green light flickered back on and the users straggled back to their desks, some still grinning at the impromptu tea-break, others grumbling at the loss of their 80-inch story that had taken the best part of an afternoon to compose.
In 1985, the Post upgraded to a publishing system from Eastman Kodak called Atex, which was already widely used in newspapers around the world. A bonus for the Post was that it was similar to Tal-Star, with editors still required to work in front of 'dumb' terminals, but it was massively more reliable and cut down on missing stories and wasted time.