WEBVTT - Printing press? Big deal! 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.560 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Five 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.600 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.400 I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:21.560 there's Jerry out there, our ethereal ephemeral producer, and this 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:26.720 is Stuff you Should Know, which um for this edition. 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.000 I feel like we should be playing like harpsichord or 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:31.200 something like that in the background when we start. You 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:32.960 want to do that? Should we gus see it up 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:35.640 a little? Yeah? Jerry knows what she's She knows her 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.199 way around an old harpsichord, so maybe maybe she can 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.560 do that for us. I wonder if we have a 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:45.120 message break stinger that's harpsichord. Oh, that's a great question, 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.120 because we've been getting I mean, we've gotten great ones 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.920 all along, but sometimes they're just showing up. I'm like, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:53.159 where did this come from? I don't even recognize this 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:56.080 one's great stuff? Yeah, and too, you know, for those 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.760 of you who don't know, those are made by listeners. Yeah, 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.440 submitted out of the goodness of their hearts for yep 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.640 to say. Here you go, guys, I hope you enjoy it. 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:07.280 You can use it all you want. It's very sweet. 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.240 So we're talking about the printing press, and um, we're 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:13.840 talking about the invention of the printing press, and the 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.720 printing press itself is basically synonymous with a man named 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.480 Johann Gutenberg. Johannes we just got right out of the 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:28.400 gate man. I'm going with Johann Gutenberg, or as the 0:01:28.440 --> 0:01:32.399 rest of us in the world call him Gutenberg, let's 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:38.199 call him Steve Gutenberg gut Buck. Okay, okay. So, Um 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:43.039 Gutenberg is traditionally credited with inventing the printing press, and 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:46.160 for all intents and purposes, he did invent the printing press. 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:48.720 But um, as our friend ed Grabanowski goes with great 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.800 pains to point out, he did not invent it out 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.800 a whole cloth, as apparently some people believe that that 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.920 it was just a pile of lumber and an idea 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.360 for him that he that he put together. Like every 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:08.000 inventor whoever invented anything, he he built on different concepts 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.600 that have been worked out over centuries. Um. The thing 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.080 is is, like that's not to detract from his accomplishment 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.720 or anything like that. Like what he did literally change 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.560 the world, as we'll see in some amazing ways, but 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.880 he helped provide the first information age and got really 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.639 kind of screwed over in the bargain. Yeah, I mean 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.399 it's kind of a familiar story at this point, right, sadly, yes, man, 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.760 And I'm kind of sick of that. I wish which 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:40.240 one of stealing, of building on others, or of yeah, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:42.959 the second one. No, I understand building on the work 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:44.919 of others. That's the other thing, too, is I don't 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:48.040 think Guttenberg ever said like, no, I invented all of 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.520 this without any help. We don't have any indication he 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:51.960 was like that at all. That just kind of got 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.280 hung on him over the years. By sixth graders, we 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.920 built on the work of Adam Curry. We didn't he 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:00.960 still at it? Did you know that he's still podcasting? 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.640 I'm almost a million percent sure, which is really sure? 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.440 And did he really have the first one? I don't 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:10.400 know if he had the first, but he's credited with 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:14.040 having the first. Very interesting. He's definitely still active on 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:18.480 social media, for sure. So for the printing press, if 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.320 if we jump back in the old way back machine 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:31.760 and we we breathe past Adam Curry, there, Hi, Adam, Hey, Adam, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.800 Look at his hair, just waving that very nice. Uh. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.400 We would go back and see people carving up these 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:44.040 things into would uh and then they would um. It's 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.000 sort of like a stamp you would get for a 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:48.040 kid these days, or if you you know, you go 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:49.480 to a stamp shop and you want to get a 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.480 stamp with your address or whatever for an adult. Yeah, 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.880 Like we got a stamp made. Emily got a stamp 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.680 made of our house when we finally finished renovating our house, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.560 which we've never used. Our our friend so that you 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.320 haven't used. So is it a picture of your your house? Yeah, 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:09.000 it's like, okay, it looks like a little woodcut. But 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.360 it's not like we send people letters and stamp that 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.280 or any man. I gotta tell you, I would like 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.600 to see that on a Christmas card envelope. You know. 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:18.479 You know she did give me, and boy, I'm going 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.599 to use it one days. Uh. You know how they 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.520 would melt wax and seal the envelope with a little stamp. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:25.880 She got me one of those little kits for Christmas 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.719 a couple of years. Nice and you still haven't used it. Now, 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:30.279 you know what, I'm going to write you a letter 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.880 on some vellum. Thank you. I'm gonna stamp my house 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.720 on it. I'm gonna wax, seal it and with and uh, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.520 then put on some red lipstick huh, and then tinkle 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.080 on the whole thing, give it a kiss, and then 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.680 be on it. Um. We we have a stamp too, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.080 but it's um has our address stamped on. Our friends 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:49.080 Lorrel and Brandon gave it to us. Yeah, I mean 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:50.839 that makes a lot of sense, right, and we have 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:53.440 used that one before. But I want to see this stamp, 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.279 this whole Christmas card would tinkle on it and vellum 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.400 and wax. I can't wait to see it. All right, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:02.240 it's gonna happen. So a wood cut and a long 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:03.599 way of saying it looks sort of like one of 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.800 these stamps. It's cut out, um, out of a wood block. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.600 And then you take paper or vellum or something or 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.040 whatever you want to print it on, rub it down 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:15.640 with some ink, and then press it down. And they 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.320 had a thing back in the day in Europe in 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.800 the fourteen hundreds called block books that were made from 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:24.920 these wood cuts. They were you know, ten to pages long, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.159 and they kind of look like comic books if you 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:28.760 look them up. They have a little bit of artwork, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.800 a little bit of text. Medieval comic books. Yeah, it's 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.280 like comic books without any of the fun because they 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.040 had some sort of moral message attached to it. Usually right, 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.599 it was like a jack Chick tract or something. But 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:43.080 they were a big deal in Europe in the fourteen hundreds, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.240 and they thought that they invented something. But of course 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.320 the Chinese were like, excuse me, We've been doing this 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:53.200 stuff for hundreds of years. Yeah, and and I think 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:58.640 as far back as nine No. Eight sixty eight c. 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.520 Which is a while ago, more than a thousand years about. 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:09.200 Plus the Diamond Sutra, which was a buddhist Um text, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.800 was the first known printed book, and they printed it 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.440 like you just described, where each page was a wood 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:20.200 carving in negative chuck in negative, because if you made 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.240 it in in the positive when you put the paper 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.480 on it with the ink, it would be in reverse 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:26.200 when you looked at it on the page. So you 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:29.560 had to carve each page like that in negative. So 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.040 it was a really difficult process, but it worked. It 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.599 was useful. It was a lot easier once you got 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.360 those blocks carved for a page. Then it was to 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.479 transcribe entire books and texts by hand, which is what 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.719 they've done up to that point and still continue to 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:45.960 do for a very long time. Yeah. So when I 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.839 saw the Diamond Sutra, just obviously the word sutra stood 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.640 out to me because of the Kama Sutra, and I really, 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.080 of course, and I didn't even I realized I didn't 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:57.160 even know what that word meant. And it's just it's 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.680 a collection of observations basically, he said, Oh, I mean 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:04.279 cook book. Well, it could be. It's a collection of 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:06.640 observations in a book or a pamphlet. And I think 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.640 we really missed a diamond opportunity for our book title 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.800 by not calling it like the Stuff you Should Know Sutra. Yeah. Well, 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.040 hey if this one, if this one goes even passingly 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.400 well ourselves passingly, well we'll probably have a second chance. 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.000 You can pre order that thing, by the way, the 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:26.920 Stuff you Should Know, No, boy, you could pre pre 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:29.880 order that one, right. I'm getting limber as we speak 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:31.880 to try to get that one done. Right. Yeah, you 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.480 can preorder our book, an incomplete compendium of mostly interesting 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.960 stuff Sutra. Thanks. You should have just had comma comma sutra, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:44.120 get it right. I like that? So that was one 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:46.160 in eight six eight CE like you said. Then in 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.720 seventy one b C. There was another one called did 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.760 you mention that one? The Trippy Taka? Not yet? That 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.280 was another Buddhist text that was ce C E. Oh 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.480 it is, so they got wrong here, Yeah, all right, 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.920 so the whole thing starts about eleven years ago. Okay, 0:08:03.960 --> 0:08:06.720 well that makes more sense. Yeah, but that's the one 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.520 that had I think a hundred and thirty thousand would 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:15.200 block carvings. Yeah, that's insane. That means not only that 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.960 somebody carved that, but somebody kept that like at their house. 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.120 Imagine living around a hundred and thirty thousand wood block carvings, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.520 and you would be like, I need to reprint page 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.800 eight thirty two, and then having you to go find 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:30.120 the wood block carving for page eight thirty two and 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.840 just it just sounds like a nightmare. I'd be like, 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:35.079 I don't I don't care about reading or literacy or 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.120 moving humanity forward at this point. Maybe it was the house. 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.520 Mm hmm. You just blew my mind right out of 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.439 the top of my head. So there was some more 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:49.920 experimentation going on after this in China and Korea, UM 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:51.880 and some big and they were using like little wood 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.080 or ceramic or metal blocks to make individual characters for 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.640 the first time. And this was a big kind of 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.720 pushed forward towards what we all though as what would 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:04.840 eventually be the Gutenberg Press. Is individual letters are in 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:08.080 their case characters instead of just doing each page as 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.680 a separate woodcut. Yeah. What's awesome is there is a 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.120 commoner in China named B. Shang who um is thought 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:18.480 to have come up with movable type, where rather than 0:09:18.800 --> 0:09:21.840 you know, carving a woodblock for each page, you have letters, 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.040 individual letters carved out and you can arrange them just 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.720 so anyway you want, and then once you print that page, 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:28.320 you can arrange them in a different way to print 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.840 the next page. And that is a huge innovation for sure. 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.360 And again note that this guy came up with this 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.280 in about ten forty one CE, so a good four 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.400 hundred years before Guttenberg was working. What does Ed keep saying, BC, 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.680 I don't know. I think he really likes the sound 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.439 of it, all right, fair enough, it's definitely see either. 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.800 Uh no, I'm not doubting that. I'm just I was 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.000 thinking too. I was like, gosh, what if he was right? 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.120 What if all this had started a good thousand years earlier, 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:58.520 Like how much further along would we be right now? 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.440 Because it held Yeah if this had happened three thousand 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.640 years ago rather than one thousand years ago. Yeah, because 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:10.280 here's the little spoiler. Printing books is a big deal. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.920 Like some say that religion and democracy and I mean 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.480 just sort of the advancement of humanity was was this? 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:21.800 It was key to advancing all those things. Do you 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:26.839 know who says that us people who are right us. Yeah, 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.040 I definitely am on board with that because, yeah, the 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:30.880 for the best way you can put it, it was 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.600 the first information age that got launched by Guttenberg, by 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:37.920 gut Buck. So that's I keep saying that because it's 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:41.200 Steve Guttenberg's handle on Twitter. Oh is it really okay? 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:44.959 Steve gut Is it really? He is the nicest guy too. 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.560 I haven't Uh yeah, I haven't. I haven't checked in 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:51.079 on his feed for a very long time, but um, 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:53.240 years back, he used to be like all up in 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.920 our feed, and um he was just so nice, Happy 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.400 Friday everybody kind of stuff, like every Fridays. Just a 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:05.679 super nice guy. So I'm assuming nothing's gone horribly wrong 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.560 with him and that he's still just as nice as 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:09.880 he was a few years ago. Well, I highly recommend 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.600 you know, I've always um promoted the Great Great Stars 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:15.720 TV show Party Down one of my favorite shows of 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.640 all time, and Goots has a great, great, great episode 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:22.880 and it seems like that's who he is, and he's 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.440 a super nice guy in that episode because he um, 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.480 you know, it's about a catering company. There were a 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.640 bunch of like writers and actors and stuff doing catering 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:33.840 work and he hires them to come over to his 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.800 house for his birthday. There there at the house when 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.000 he pulls in and he's like, oh man, we ended 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:42.160 up having a surprise party for me and I've forgot 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:44.200 So he's just like, why don't you guys just come 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:47.000 and then we'll be the party. Right, But you could 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.320 really get the idea that that's who Goods is as 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:52.600 a person. You know, it's great as you've definitely definitely 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.000 told that story before on the podcast, which means like 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.800 we've gotten to this point where we're amassing, like we're 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.680 building a standalone universe where like when Steve Gooberg appears, 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.880 this story pops up as well around him. You know 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:07.440 what I'm saying, like, Oh, I knew, I told it. 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:09.440 I couldn't remember when though, What when would he have 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:11.959 come up? I don't remember, but I'm sure we talked 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.080 also about what a great guy he is on Twitter 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.680 and all sorts of stuff, like like we have a 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.920 character like a simil acrome of or simil acro of 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.079 Steve Guttenberg that lives in our podcast universe, and he's 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:29.839 very less multifaceted than I'm sure he is in real life, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.000 but in our universe's nice guy on Twitter, had a 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.480 great episode of Party Down. That's all you need to 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.680 know about Steve Goomberg. I know we haven't even gotten 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:40.680 into police Catty. Do we do a show on Police Academy? 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.160 So that probably would have made sense. I don't think 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.760 we have. If we have, I must have been blacked 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.920 out or something. Alright, So printing press is advancing forward. 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:54.080 Go to Korea in twelve thirty four, and you're going 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.480 to find a man named Show Young Wee who was 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.480 commissioned to do uh some more boot is text. A 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.880 lot of this was Buddhist text. Well yeah, if you'll 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:06.839 notice religious texts help push this whole thing forward from 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.000 different religions, even yeah, like that Bible that Guttenberg would 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:14.600 make stunts. Sorry, so this one was really really long, 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.240 and he was using this movable print that had already 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.200 been around, but this time he was making these letters 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.120 for metal um, kind of using what the technique they 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.040 did for coin minting, which had been going on for 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.240 a while. Set him in a frame, lined them all up, 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.199 coded them with ink, and pressed them. And if you think, hey, 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:36.080 that sounds like a printing press, you would be exactly right. 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.239 You're right, fella, for sure. That's that's basically what Guttenberg 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.840 came up with. He had a couple of extra innovations, 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.800 for sure, that are definitely credited to him directly, but 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:49.439 that general idea had been around for a couple of 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:54.600 hundred years at least before he started printing his own 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.559 stuff using this machine of his invention. Now, again, this 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:01.320 is not detract at all from Guttenberg. He put together 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.800 a lot of disparate ideas, and there's also a lot 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.400 of debate whether he would have known about the Korean 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.040 or Chinese advancements in printing um. If so, maybe it 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.600 was the Mongols that spread it west, but they're not 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.640 entirely certain there's no smoking gun, so it's possible he 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:21.200 also thought of it himself, just by being involved in 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.040 it and thinking about it, or maybe he heard about 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.160 some other stuff and refined it into his own thing. Regardless, 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.120 he came up with the printing press, and the Chinese 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.640 and the Koreans are not credited with that for actually 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.240 a couple of reasons. And the upshot of all of 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.520 it is that it didn't ever really take off in 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.840 China or Korea. Um, even though it was invented there, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.280 it didn't become widespread or widely used, and it certainly 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.960 didn't create an information age revolution. Well, how's this for cliffhanger. 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.760 We'll take a little break and we'll tell you a 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.320 couple more reasons why it never took off in Asia 0:14:55.480 --> 0:15:19.480 right after this, alright, Chuck, I can't take this any longer. 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.320 To tell us, tell us why it never took off 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:24.720 in Asia. Well, some some reasons that just make a 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:28.760 lot of sense. Um. They are they have very complex 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:33.480 characters with their language, and they have, you know, up 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:38.160 to tens of thousands of characters with different pronunciations, different 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:42.840 phone ms, different syllables, and you can't. You just can't 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.720 do it. You can't have that many little tiny blocks, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.360 much less multiples of those if you want to print 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.760 a page, you know, because it's not like you can 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.840 move them around. And then keeping up with all these 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.560 was literally one of the big problems. Like they made 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:58.600 these big I think there was a man named Wang 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.360 Wang Zen who use these revolving tables to access these 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.680 big racks of letters. But it was kind of like 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.000 what you were talking about with the house made of 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:12.080 woodblocks of hundred and thirty thousand wood cuts. It's like, 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:13.760 you you just can't keep up with that many. So 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:17.120 it wasn't practical. And then Guttenberg comes along, He's like, 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.480 we only have twenty six letters, so this is pretty 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.840 this is pretty dumbed down as a language goes. Yeah, 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.840 because I mean even if you do you know, capitals 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.520 and lower case, that's still just what fifty two and 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.240 throwing some punctuation, Yeah, some punctuation makes some doubles because 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.320 you know you're gonna use E a lot more times 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.080 than one per page, so you need to make some 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.520 backup copies of them. He made about three hundred in 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.000 the end, right, That's what I saw Yeah, three hundred um, 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:51.280 different characters, spaces, punctuation um, upper case, lower case, and 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.360 that that's all he needed. So the three hundred verses 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.760 tens of thousands um. Number one is this easier to make, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.160 but number two it's he's year to keep up with two. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.240 So um. Guttenberg just happened to be working in just 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.600 the right language for a movable type printing press to 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:12.160 really make sense. Should we talk about this guy? Yeah, 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.960 because I like him. He's he's um. He had a 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:18.760 bit of a hustle to him, and I like and 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.480 he's also one of histories kind of hard luck guys 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.639 in a way, even though I mean, you know, his 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.199 name is legendary, so you can't put a price on that. 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:28.439 I'm sure he would have liked to have put a 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.160 price on that, so it I just want to say, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.560 from what I saw, it is very much up for 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:37.040 debate whether he actually was financially ruined in the end 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:40.280 that he was doing fine. Because one thing we got 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.720 to tell everybody chuck out of the gate is Guttenberg 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.159 was born at a time where his father was a patrician. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.040 He was an aristocrat in Um in Germany. Mains is 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:56.960 it mains Minz Germany. Um, So he was, you know, notable, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.000 but this wasn't a time where people of that class, 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:02.680 you know, he wasn't like a king or anything like yet, 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:05.880 so there was not a lot of documentation of his birth. 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:08.879 Were not entirely certain when he was born. His early 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.159 life has kind of lost to history too, because he 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.399 was just kind of a nobody until he invented the 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.960 printing press. But the thing is, when he invented the 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.560 printing press, it was so revolutionary and so obvious how 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:23.439 revolutionary it was out of the gate that within a 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:26.600 decade or two of his death, historians were studying and 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:30.040 documenting his life. So there's a surprising amount of stuff 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.040 that was documented about him that's preserved still. But the 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.040 stuff that we do have is almost entirely his work. 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.359 And then court records when he was dragged into court 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:44.399 by creditors and investors. Yeah, so you said he had 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.200 a little bit of a hustle, um, I think ed says. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.840 They referred to him charitably as having entrepreneurial flair. It's 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:54.720 another word of saying he had a bit of a 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:56.680 hustle to him, and he would get in He was 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.560 always trying to make a buck, always had some sort 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:02.080 of scheme in the works, and which means he had 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.600 investors a lot of times and a lot of times 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:07.040 he might not come through. So as a result, he 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:08.720 was taken to court a lot, like you said, and 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:11.240 it's kind of funny to build this guy's life out 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.960 of court records, but we are able to construct a 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.560 little bit of it because of him being hauled in 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.640 there and being sued time and time again, and most notably, 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:23.960 were able to kind of piece together the printing press 0:19:24.000 --> 0:19:26.760 that he invented, what he invented, what he knew when 0:19:26.920 --> 0:19:30.600 from these court records, because all of these um these 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:35.480 lawsuits basically were over his work. They were between investors 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:38.159 in his work and him. And the thing is is, 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.879 like I don't have the impression that he was a 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:43.080 hustler in the sense that he was a con man 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:47.120 or shark or anything like that. He he had very 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.919 high aspirations. He also had these smarts to figure out 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.879 how to achieve these aspirations. He just didn't have the 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:57.440 money to achieve these aspirations, so he needed outside help. 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:01.159 His big problem is far as investors go, from what 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.879 I can tell is that he was a perfectionist. So 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.840 rather than just figure out how to invent the movable 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:09.760 type printing press, which he did, he also tried to 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.280 figure out one that could also print in red on 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:16.200 a different set, or using copper engraving to create um 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.800 different types of of type. Some stuff that like details 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:24.520 that were like kind of unnecessary, but made this transform 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.520 this thing from you know, an amazing piece of work 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.119 to a masterpiece. And the time it took to be 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:35.240 that much of a perfectionist made him run into creditors 0:20:35.240 --> 0:20:38.440 and investors that were not that patient. Yeah, And his 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.719 first sort of tinkering with pressing anything, it seems because 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.760 of again a lawsuit was in Strasbourg when he lived 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:53.399 there in around fourteen thirty eight, is that ce and 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.800 he would, uh, he had this plan to produce these 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:03.440 trinkets for people going on religious pilgrimage is more than one. Yeah, 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.200 So he had these tools that he could stamp out 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.760 these trinkets and press these things, and so he he 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.679 sort of had an idea at least of how this 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:15.440 kind of technology worked as far as cutting something, stamping 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.440 and pressing it. And there's some indication, Chuck, that he 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.200 was already figuring out the rough contours, if not more 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.560 detailed than that of his printing press in Strasbourg. Because 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:30.760 that first court case um was by the family of 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.440 some creditors who who took him to court because they 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:37.280 wanted in on some secret work he was keeping from 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.400 them um um and being investors in him, they were saying, well, 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:43.840 you know, if you're doing work on the side, we 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:45.800 should have a piece of that too. And that's where 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.840 some historians are like, this, actually what they're describing here 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.640 is part of the printing press because of debate. Still, well, 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:54.639