_The Biography of Ottmar Mergenthaler, Inventor of the Linotype_ by Carl Schlesinger https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3648638-the-biography-of-ottmar-mergen

_The Biography of Ottmar Mergenthaler, Inventor of the Linotype_ by Carl Schlesinger https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3648638-the-biography-of-ottmar-mergenthaler-inventor-of-the-linotype https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3648638-the-biography-of... c.f., _Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype: The Origin of Digital Typesetting_ by Richard L Hopkins https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17140645-tolbert-lanston-and-the-monotype https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17140645-tolbert-lanston... For background on how difficult/apparently impossible this was, see the story of Mark Twain's investment in a typesetting machine: https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/yankee/cymach6.html https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/yankee/cymach6.html One of the more memorably moments of my life was visiting a local newspaper back when they were still setting type using a Linotype machine --- it's just incredible to watch one (or the competing Monotype) work. If I could, I'd have a Monotype machine in my shop along with a printing press, but first I'd need a shop, rather than a workbench at one end of the basement laundry room... It's my understanding that for a long while, the U.S. Patent Office refused to consider patents for intermittent windshield wiping mechanisms because none of them worked --- the actual story of the invention is far more sordid: https://thehustle.co/windshield-wiper-inventor-robert-kearns https://thehustle.co/windshield-wiper-inventor-robert-kearns For us folks interested in computers, there is of course Charles Babbage who tried and failed, yet still managed to create many of the concepts underlying our modern computing devices. While the story of a team, Tracy Kidder's _The Soul of a New Machine_ is a classic which I would highly recommend: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7090.The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7090.The_Soul_of_a_Ne... and for a more recent spin on things, look at the folks who crashed and burned such as Jerry Kaplan: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup