The History Of Printing And Printers

The history of printing started in the Neolithic period

. In the early Mesopotamian civilization, cylindrical seals were impressed onto clay tablets to make complex images. In China and Egypt, small seals eventually grew into larger blocks, and in Europe and India the period was marked by cloth printing. Early advanced civilizations used block printing to copy images, text and patterns onto textiles and paper. Their main purpose was to preserve religious texts and to print on clothing for religious purposes.

The first movable type system was developed in China by Bi Sheng around 1040 AD. Movable type consists of a matrix of metal typeface that allows for uniform lettering and a more durable manner of printing. Metal movable type was also invented in Korea around 1230 AD, but the Asian systems did not catch on because of their languages' vast amount of characters.

The advent of movable type in Europe was ushered in by Johannes Gutenberg's movable printing press in 1439 AD. The first publication printed on the Gutenberg Press was the Gutenberg Bible, and from there the European output of printed books rose exponentially, leading to the Renaissance and printing systems all over the world. This invention was crucial to the spread of communication and knowledge all around the world. The press had the ability to print and copy much more efficiently than any type of manual print. The mechanism behind the printing press allowed pressure on an inked surface to transplant the image onto a piece of cloth or paper. Printing presses popped up swiftly in 15th century Europe, reached the Philippines in 1593 AD, and the English American colonies in 1638 AD.

During the middle part of the 19th century, the rotary printing press was born. This was a machine that allowed printings to be done around a cylindrical image block. Also during the 1800s, chromolithography became a popular method of color printing that evolved from lithography. These types of printing used the chemical repellence of oil or ink and water. In the late part of the century, the offset press, which used parts of lithography technology, allowed the transference of an inked image onto a surface from a rubber blanket.

Duplicating machines, including mimeographs, spirit duplicators, polygraphs and letter copying presses, predated the modern photocopiers known today. Mimeograph and spirit duplicator technology dueled to be the prevailing printing technology of the time during the first half of the 20th century. Mimeographs used wax-paper stencils to imprint ink around a drum which could then make copies of the said image or type.

By the 1960s the photocopier was born as the Xerox, antiquating other copying technologies such as Verifax and carbon paper. The laser printer was invented by Gary Starkweather at Xerox in 1969 and first released in 1980, costing $17,000. As personal computing advanced, laser printers became cheaper and more popular. Today's popular inkjet printers were first manufactured in the 1970s and the consumer market was eventually dominated by Epson, Hewlett-Packard, Canon, and Lexmark. Inkjet printers replaced dot matrix and daisy wheel printers because they could print with more accuracy and finer detail. Digital computing printing is now what most people understand to be printing.

The digital revolution has allowed a rapid dissemination of knowledge and print similar to the transition from block prints to the Gutenberg printing press. New printing technology has been incorporated by printers all cross the world, including printing in Flower Mound, Texas, allowing people to print out digital images as never before. In digital printing a digital image, via ink or toner, is reproduced on a physical surface. Most recently, 3D printing has developed by printing a virtual 3D model in subsequent layers to make a physical object.

by: Jordan McPelt

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