EXTRA BITS - Printing and Typesetting History - Computerphile

More information on the background of Printing and Typesetting to complement "The Great 202 Jailbreak" film which can be seen here: • The Great 202 Jailbrea...
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/ computer_phile
This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.
Computer Science at the University of Nottingham: bit.ly/nottscomputer
Computerphile is a sister project to Brady Haran's Numberphile. See the full list of Brady's video projects at: bit.ly/bradychannels

[@TheDarkerPath]

Great stuff! A related video on the development of TeX and LaTeX would be equally awesome.

[@slpk]

This man is a living Wikipedia!

[@super999999]

0:06 "Just step back a bit" Zooms in

[@phelpsio]

I absolutely love listening to this man.

[@PhilHibbs]

The type is probably made from a lead-antimony alloy, which has the peculiar property that when it cools and sets, it expands slightly so that the metal squeezes into all the corners of the mould and makes nice sharp edges.

[@delusionnnnn]

One of my favourite typographic experiments comes out of someone trying to re-conceptualize type to benefit from the limitations of the era instead of working around them - Wim Crouwel's New Alphabet. I like it so much, I've re-created my own variant in OpenType with several different feature variants for my own use.

[@89Ayten]

As a typographer & graphic designer I loved this! Thank you!

[@Mrjesse451]

So, I looked up on KZbin how the Linotype worked and found an old 1960s educational video on how it operates. Genius, pure genius. That guy who developed that was brilliant. I dont know why, maybe because I have grown up in the computer/digital age but Mechanical engineering seems so much more amazing to me than computer engineering. When I see things like the Linotype I am awe struck and think "Man, thats so awesome somebody thought up all those mechanical pieces working together to create that machine". When I use a computer program like a game or something I'm just like "yeah, whatever, a bunch of people spent a few years and wrote the code for this game". It's weird.

[@DKRCecer]

As a programmer I can't help but feel slightly offended by that... yet I totally agree at the same time. It's weird.

[@KorsarNek]

That's a bid sad. But I think the difference is, a computer program is like a black box and you only see the result, not how it worked to get that result. If you see the finished result from a Linotype, you probably aren't amazed either.

[@davejordan6922]

i'm a former programmer and a former linotype operator and they are both sexy the clatter of brass type vs the elegance of algorithms steak and lobster when my print shop went optical we had the lino torn down and hauled away i kept the driveshaft -- the "57 pound cylinder" to me and my friends it was ideal for crushing beer cans wafer thin

[@ASilentS]

The Caslon italic ampersand is the most beautiful piece of typography in existence.

[@89Ayten]

Indeed! It looks arabic, how pretty

[@mercatorpsi]

Every "Desktop Publisher" needs to see this. I learned some of it through my undergrad, but there's a ton of interesting info toward the end! Thanks Brady!

[@BluishGreenPro]

I don't think this should be relegated to an "Extra Bit", I think it should be up with the other videos on the channel. Fascinating stuff!

[@ForbinKid]

I was training on PDP-11's in the 70s in Massachusetts at DEC, and seem to remember there was a lot of push back from the printing unions about this new typesetting method replacing workers.

[@RMoribayashi]

Metal movable type printing using bronze was invented in Korea in 1230. Gutenbeg's greatest invention, the hand mould, could rapidly cast letters using a low melting point (~250C°) alloy of lead, tin, and antimony that is used to this day. He was helped along by preexisting inventions like the olive press and the fact that the Latin alphabet needed only around 100 characters. The 3000+ symbols needed for the Chinese language (or even the ~1800 Chinese characters used to represent Korean at the time) continued to make large scale woodblock printing more practical in both countries for centuries.

[@fergusmgraham]

I could listen to him talk about anything. He has a very soothing delivery :-)

[@mattgraham5625]

Finally watched this. Left me wanting to see more.

[@MuncleUscles]

What never fails to blow my mind is how utterly fascinating and interesting any imaginable subject becomes when explored in depth, and even more so when beautifully explained by a knowledgeable and intelligent person like Professor Brailsford. Keep up the good work providing the best entertainment for high(and sober, whatever floats everyone's boats) people!

[@lloydnone]

Very interesting! Thanks for making this! Its great to not have a video that's rushing to finish!!!

[@evad1089]

On the theme of typesetting, is a LaTeX episode in the works? I would like to learn more about LaTeX's history.

[@Altorin]

I love all of your videos brady, and this old guy is one of my favorites

[@jdgrahamo]

I did a bit of type-setting when I was younger. The characters were read upside-down and back-to-front (so you could read left to right). Everything had to fit perfectly, otherwise any loose characters would just fall out. There are still a few printers' terms in use today, such as 'mind your p's and q's'. And apparently, though we never used it, the term 'dog's bollocks' which referred to the dash and colon :- A little video on printers would be nice -- daisy-wheel, ink-jet, laser. 3-D How they work etc. Just a thought.

[@FishKungfu]

This kind of history is so important to remember. Thanks for making these videos, Brady!

[@Chaoticmass]

Very good recap of the history of typesetting-- only disappointed he didn't get to LaTeX.

[@VernAfterReading]

I wrote in Troff back in the 80s for a magazine we published. Then you would go down to some basement at the college and pick up the rolls of beautiful text so you could cut and paste them onto your layout. Still gets people when I say I did cut and paste literally - with an x-acto knife!

[@sanches2]

Thanks a lot :) it was a very interesting tech history lesson

[@sd4dfg2]

I wrote my first resume in nroff. But printed it on a laser printer. I didn't know how much history I was jamming together.

[@alexanderchildress9093]

Did he just say 'fiber optic bundle' to transport a single optical letter? Wow - that's the first I've heard of fiber optics in such a (semi-)historical context.

[@bdf2718]

Most notable by its omision in this video (or the related computerphile videos I have so far seen is TeX. DEK does get a brief mention in one video but nothing about TeX ir Metafont. Strange, because I know TeX was in use at Nottingham in the 80s.

[@Nilguiri]

Very interesting. Thanks Brady.

[@Treknologist]

6:06 JJ Abrams approves!

[@typograf62]

Many of the details of moveable type and early typesetters are not completely correct. The blank metal slugs are spaces, not leading. Leading are longer strips of lead or aluminium. I've never heard about fibre optics in photosetters, moveable lenses, mirrors and prisms were the norm. When setting by hand not only are the types mirror images, you also read them upside down. You build (compose) the lines, type by type, in a certain tool - a composing stick - that easily holds a few lines of type. Then you move the lines to the galley where the page is build. The pages are put together in the form.

[@sysmatt]

Superb work! Wow

[@siprus]

To be fair, most inventors refined existing technology so that it became practical.

[@MegaPeers]

Very interesting again, thanks a million!

[@fmontpetit]

How is this 'extra-bits'? Another excellent video. Thank you!

[@RealCadde]

Awesome stuff!

[@btfx]

Great pair of videos, but this serves much better as background to the main video than a postscript. (Hah. hah.) Perhaps next time post an annotation in the opening.

[@Computerphile]

Yes - fair point - the Professor and I decided that this intro/background part wasn't quite computerphile enough to be at the start of the other film, which is supposed to be about the jailbreak, though we wanted to add it - in total it would be a nice 35minute documentary about type and typesetting I suppose! :) >Sean (p.s. as with all EXTRA BITS, this will be released in its own right soon)

[@TimSwast]

Great history lesson!

[@ijunkie]

Most people don't know exactly what Gutenberg's invention was. He put a movable frame under a wine press. That's it. He created the first movable printing press, not the first metal type, which was a Korean invention of the 14th Century.

[@Toschez]

I'm so glad he gets the pronunciation of Univers right.

[@daedra40]

Perfect nonetheless again on computerphile :D

[@Cliffdog01]

Considering that is how the early printers worked. How did the early Photocopiers work seeming as at least seem older than the early printers?

[@certee]

old people of the future are going to be so cool

[@squelchedotter]

I think the audio is a bit low on this one, checking your settings and comparing to other episodes might be a good Idea!

[@GegoXaren]

\TeX Nothing more to say.

[@YouHolli]

Are you going to cover TeX anytime soon?

[@tiger10guy]

Where does Knuth's TeX system fit in to all this?

[@ASilentS]

Linotype FTW!

[@OvyGr]

what about MEPS used for printing top 1 and 2 most spread magazines in the world of 2013 in over 100 languages simoulanously?

[@PapaNoahful]

hey computerphile, really like the videos, but could you pleeeease work a bit more on your sound? I always have to turn up the volume to almost max, and if I forget to turn it down after your video it blasts my right off my chair..

[@patrick1020000]

OMG I GET IT computerphile = computer file

[@MrAvocado42]

why is this video unlisted

[@joshcryer]

Brady unlists extended bits to see how many people follow the About or Annotation links. ie, the hardcore viewers who really want to see the rest. Not sure if he lists them later on or not.

[@Ludix147]

He does. He did it right now.

[@joshcryer]

Ludix147 Thanks for alerting me to that, I kind of figured he listed after a time, makes the most sense.

[@PatrickMcDougle]

I think he does this to raise the likelihood of subscribers watching all videos. If both videos went into sub-boxes (provided the sub-box works) at the same time, subscribers might not watch them both. By listing the video a few days later, the time investment to each subscriber is spread over more days.

[@Hewpie]

Oooh I feel a video about LaTeX coming on... Can we have a video about LaTeX??

[@5420EXTENSA]

what's his name ?? where can i find more about him?

[@Computerphile]

Professor David Brailsford - plenty of films from him on Computerphile - check out our videos section -Sean

[@TheBilgepumper]

I wonder if they'll devote a whole episode to LaTeX?

[@AdamKlobukowski]

Typesetting history without mentionig TeX?????

[@TheWhitePianoKeyProductions]

lol, these seem to be A LOT of extra bits

[@philbot01]

These days, we can just go to the store and buy a printer for less than $100

[@SkyGrain]

"representing data in a " puts on glasses computerphile....

[@TonyLambregts]

this is wonderful. (first)

[@theseriousaccount]

all theese vids are way too short... i want more indepth discussion.

[@inopibus8418]

Brady, please hold the camera still if possible or use a tripod. I feel like vomiting watching this!

[@daedra40]

Apple and Microsoft?! Hahahaha :P

[@BatteryAcid1103]

Oh goodness... Oh gosh.. Do I say "first"? Umm... Uhhhhh...... Last!!