I often find myself wondering why the printing press was such a massive invention. Of course, it revolutionized the ability to spread information and document history, but the machine itself seems very simple; apply pressure to a screw that then pushes paper into the type form.
That leaves me with the thought that I am missing something big. I understand that my thoughts of it being simple are swayed by the fact the we live in a post-printing press world, but I choose the believe I’m smarter than all of humanity before me. /s
So that leaves me with the question, how did it take so long for this to be invented? Are we stupid?
In: Engineering
I remember that there were a few technological advancements that made it possible to actually build one. Once those occurred it was maybe just a matter of time, but it couldn’t actually be done before those. Here are the ones I remember:
All of the little letter tiles need to have a certain level of precision so that
– the printed letters line up on the paper
– the letters hit the paper at the same time. ie, you don’t have some letters sticking out too much and preventing the adjacent letters from making contact with the paper.
Additionally, it has to be made with good quality iron because other materials aren’t durable enough for the repeated movements and pressure of thousands of prints.
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