Printing I - Printing as a Technical Innovation
- Chinese/Koreans- used paper, and printed
with blocks
- but ideograph (script) makes it unsuited for type
- alphabet would be a key invention.
- Gutenberg
- wants to break into the 'mass production' market
- life: goldsmith experiments 1440 as exile; 1450 exploits
invention; 1455 Furst forecloses; 1465 gets pension from archbishop, 1468
dies penniless
- innovations: metal type, excellent ink, wine frame
- Incunabula (1450-1500 ce.)
- 'Cradle Period'- first 50 years - 2 'generations'
- 1450-1480 - first generation- books look like
manuscripts-
- collectors want what they know; past oriented
- made to look like handwriting; older texts printed first
- 1480-1500 - second generation- they didn't know
the old system
- innovations- page numbers, titles, foot notes
- new jobs- early copyists fear for job- yet demand for
secretaries improved their low
- new collaboration- scientists meet with printers
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