It's easy to become dazzled by all the cool stuff your computer can do but did you ever stop to think about the amazingly historical journey your lowly printer has taken? In evolutionary terms, your printer cartridge has ancestors that were medieval wine presses.
In the mid-1400s, a German goldsmith and inventor named Johannes Gutenberg got to thinking about a way to make the written word accessible to the general population, almost like he was dreaming up printing with a printer cartridge and everything even before the general population was allowed to learn to read. Until this time, about the only books available were hand-written copies of the Bible kept under lock and key at monasteries and other religious cloistered communities. Gutenberg thought more people should be allowed to read the Bible and he was determined to find a way to make it so.
Gutenberg was a busy man with many inventions to his credit. Many of these inventions were good in and of themselves but once he combined certain inventions in a particular way, the course of history was changed forever. It's the combination of his inventions that started the way for the evolutionary invention we know today as a printer cartridge.
Our printer cartridge got its start as a system Gutenberg developed that combined his earlier inventions of oil-based ink, moveable blocks of wood with a metal letter of the alphabet embedded, and a wooden printing press that he devised after working with screw presses used for making olive oil and wine. Using these inventions in synchronized fashion, he was instrumental in spreading the written word, and the ability to read, to everyday people from that time forward.
Gutenberg used his moveable blocks of lettering on a grid to form the words he wanted to print. He applied his oil-based ink to the letters and then used the wooden screw-type press to press the ink-laden letters onto the waiting paper or vellum. He was able to print a whole page with one pressing and could print many pages without reworking the lettering.
Mass production printing has come a long way from Gutenberg's press to your printer cartridge. Isn't it nice to stop every now and again to marvel at the history and inventiveness behind such an everyday item?
