There is another essential difference between Monotype and all the "slug"-producing machines: a Monotype machine functions with a minimal set of matrices: each character needs one matrix. Linecasters cannot function this way, and these systems need quite large magazines of matrices to be able to set a complete line of text with the usual character repetitions. Indeed, the nominal 90 channel magazine of a linecaster really has 91 total channels, with the first two channels allocated to the lower case 'e', and with these matrices being alternately selected from channel 0 or channel 1, for alternate lines of cast type.