Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Imagine Life Without Printing Equipment

By Miguel Rivera


Nothing that we know today would be the same without printing equipment. Science, engineering, education, literature, industry, communications, government, and social interaction are all dependent on this way of replicating images on one medium or another. We can thank the Chinese for the first tools to imprint an image on cloth.

Mankind didn't always put mental images on cloth, paper, or even the walls of caves. However, once people started expressing themselves - even lines drawn in the sand - they kept on refining the art. First the designs were drawn by hand, with no way to replicate them exactly.

Exact replication is one great benefit of using a preset original over and over. It also reduces the time and effort needed to make multiple copies. The first tool that achieved this was a carved block of wood used in China to imprint images on cloth. By the fourth century, the system was spreading through the Roman Empire.

The first use was artistic, but characters that made up words soon began to carved onto wood blocks as well. The Chinese language is very complicated, so the process was slow. The earliest known book is a Chinese volume dating to 869 AD. Paper money was another early example of this primitive print method.

The Chinese are credited with the first movable type, characters made of clay. Their utility was quickly recognized, and more durable wood and metal were used. Characters that could be reused and rearranged made books and other designs much easier to make and replicate. The works of Confucius are early examples.

The Gutenberg printing press of the fifteenth century, which used the simpler western alphabet, brought books into the reach of the common man. No longer were manuscripts locked away in monasteries or the libraries of royalty. The basic technique of Gutenberg, including a metal alloy that he used to make his typeface, is still used today. The Gutenberg Bible came out in 1455.

Rulers and religious leaders were reluctant to allow educational materials to reach the lower classes. They rightly feared a loss of control when all could read and draw their own conclusions. Men feared women would become too independent. It was against the law to teach a slave to read in many parts of America long after the free population was largely literate and industry was mass-producing items based on standardized designs.

Today we enjoy even more access to printing equipment with new computer technology. This ability to reproduce images in a cost effective manner is valuable in many fields, including education, industry, engineering, and communication.




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