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> It took people decades to figure out they can print smaller, easily portable books because they did not have to be viewed as these precious hand made things.

> It took people decades to figure out they can print smaller, easily portable books because they did not have to be viewed as these precious hand made things. This is wrong. The first thing Gutenberg printed after the prestigious bible (which not only resembled previous bibles, but surpassed them all in respect of the regularity of the printing types), was the Donatus, Aelius Donatus' Latin Grammar book "Ars minor". This was a standard text book of the time. It was short (aprox. 30 pages) and extremly popular: There were at least 24 editions published until 1468. From 1454/1455 we have indulgence certificates, which shows that the printing press was immediately used for cheap mass production, were "precious hand made things" were of minor improtance. The next things Gutenberg printed (1455/1456) fell into the "news and politcal pamphlet" category: a 6 page long Calendar Against the Turkes ("Eyn manung der cristenheit widder die durken") and a 25 page long German translation of a papal bull also against the Turks.

ModernMech 4y ago
I think the parent is misremembering Kay’s point a little. It’s not that people didn’t catch on to the idea that the printing press could make books cheaper/more portable because they weren’t so laborious to create. That much was obvious about its utility. Kay’s point as I remember was that, at least initially, automation of previous tasks is all they wanted to do with it. They got this great new machine that opened up tons of possibilities, but all they used it for was to make faster the same thing they were doing before. But we all know rather than saving some monks some time, what the printing press really did was fundamentally transform society. That’s what people missed, and it’s something people keep missing about transformative technologies, even today. In his book Mindstorms (which every programmer needs to read), Seymour Papert makes the same observation about computers when they were introduced in classrooms; he says that instead of unlocking the full potential of those machines, educators just used them to automate activities they were doing before - times tables, essay writing, drawing graphs, etc. Very few people realized the potential at the time, and most still don’t.
bazoom42 4y ago
I love when plausible sounding factoids is dismantled by people who actually know history.

ModernMech 4y ago

I think the parent is misremembering Kay’s point a little. It’s not that people didn’t catch on to the idea that the printing press could make books cheaper/more portable because they weren’t so laborious to create. That much was obvious about its utility. Kay’s point as I remember was that, at least initially, automation of previous tasks is all they wanted to do with it. They got this great new machine that opened up tons of possibilities, but all they used it for was to make faster the same thing they were doing before. But we all know rather than saving some monks some time, what the printing press really did was fundamentally transform society. That’s what people missed, and it’s something people keep missing about transformative technologies, even today. In his book Mindstorms (which every programmer needs to read), Seymour Papert makes the same observation about computers when they were introduced in classrooms; he says that instead of unlocking the full potential of those machines, educators just used them to automate activities they were doing before - times tables, essay writing, drawing graphs, etc. Very few people realized the potential at the time, and most still don’t.

bazoom42 4y ago

I love when plausible sounding factoids is dismantled by people who actually know history.