desolationrow1 asked:
. He travels to France and Germany on the trail of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and early media entrepreneur. Along the way he discovers the lengths Gutenberg went to keep his project secret, explores the role of avaricious investors and unscrupulous competitors, and discovers why printing mattered so much in medieval Europe. But to really understand the man and his machine, Stephen gets his hands dirty – assembling a team of craftsmen and helping them build a …
Watch 5:45 where he says there arn’t any machines or pictures. Then watch the rest of the videos where he builds one :p
Any one know where i could get a full schematic of the machine? Or at least an exploded picture of it?
i missed this on television. when was it broadcast on bbc4? great stuff…
Maybe they did, but never got the chance to show it off. Its a bit like the lightbulb and the telephone.Many people have been credited with their invention as well.
its oscar wilde..
ELuhn,
It’s not just movable type. It’s the machine itself. All you had to do was pull the lever and pop! a page was finished. Rubbing it against the woodblock, in the Chinese manner, requires skill and much more time, to finish even one page.
(cont’d)
…and an even higher level of skill to make a good-looking copy.
Secondly, there was no movable type. To make the woodblock you had to cut by knife all the white areas that would appear on each page. That’s even more labour and skill intensive. The preparation involved was longer than preparing a book for the press with Gutenberg’s movable type. With the time required and the skill required being exponentially greater, the Chinese method can’t even be compared to Gutenberg.
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If you think the Chinese invented the press, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. They had something called woodblock printing. First of all, there’s no machine involved. Each page is made by placing the paper upon a stationary block of wood, which is first daubed over with ink. Then you have to pound all over the surface of the paper to make the impression. Not as easy as it sounds- I’ve tried it. It takes a high level of skill to finish a readable page in less than a minute.
Ok! It is amazing that no one came up with the idea before Gutenberg.
The chinese invented paper. Before Gutenberg invented the printing press everything was still done by hand. Every book before the printing press was all hand written.
The European (Gutenberg’s) innovation was moveable type, which made all the difference. By making blocks of individual letters, instead of “one-offs” of pictures (the only way for the Chinese to do it, because of the nature of their language), any book could be quickly typeset and printed cheaply. Gutenberg’s press thus actually created the demand for books in Europe, rather than the other way round.
God I love Stephen Fry, what a brillant mind.
Ok! Thank you!
I think the chinese invented the printing technique but Gutenberg invented the mechanical press.
Hey… you’re right, of course, as with most things “invented” and “discovered” by Europeans. It has something to do with the Chinese press using wooden type (as opposed to metal or whatever), and something to do with a higher demand for books in Europe… Wikipedia’s entry on the printing press is worth having a peek at.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but did’nt the chinese invent it before us europeans?