Essay About Printing Press And Gutenbergs Invention

History of Communication
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Since the beginning of time, people have had the need to communicate with one
and other. The most common type of communication is speech, but you could not talk to
someone who lived 20 miles away. Then written language was developed, people marked
symbols on paper, stone, or whatever was available. Then hundreds of years passed, and
people who wanted to share their ideas with people had to do allot of writing, until
someone thought to make a writing machine. This machine is called the printing press.
Gutenbergs invention of the printing press is widely thought of as the origin of
mass communication– it marked Western cultures first viable method of disseminating
ideas and information
from a single source to a large and far-ranging audience. The story of
print is a long and complax one. It may be too much to claim that print was the single
cause of the massive social, political and psychological changes it is associated with.
However, print did wield enormous influence on every aspect of European culture. Some
historians suggest that print was instrumental in bringing about all the major shifts in
science, religion, politics and the modes of thought that are commonly associated with
modern Western culture.
Gutenberg foresaw enormous profit-making potential for a printing press that used
movable metal type. Despite their rapid growth in numbers, secular scribes simply could
not keep up with the commercial demand for books. Gutenberg also saw strong maket
potential in selling indulgences, the slips of paper offering written dispensation from sin
that the Church sold to fund crusades, new buildings and other projects devoted to
expanding its dominance. In fact, press runs of 200,000 indulgences at a time were
common soon after the handwritten versions became obsolete.
There were many different innovations since the first hand operated printing press.
The Stanhope press, which was widely used for many years, still used a hand-operated
screw to press print and paper, but it could print up to 250 sheets an hour. A considerable
improvement was the Colombian press. In this press, the typical screw method was
eliminated, and replaced with powerful hand levers.
All of there presses, and variants of them, had two features in common: they were
manually operated, and the flat surfaces of print and paper were pressed together by a
screw or lever. A man names Fredric Koenig invinted the steam press, this press has a
cylinder which rolled the paper over the inked type. This press was much more efficient,
and could print up to 1000 sheets per hour. Since then the printing press has progressed
greatly, the fastest printing press in the world can print up to 110,000 sheets an hour.
The Morse system of telegraphy was invented by Samuel Morse in the 1840s in the
United Strates. “Morse Code” is essentially a simple way to represent the letters of the
alphabet using patterns of dots and dashes. A unique pattern is assigned to each character
of the alphabet, as well as to the ten numerals. These long and short pulses are translated
into electrical signals by an operator using a telegraph key, and the electrical signals are
translated back into the alphabetic characters by a skilled operator at the distant receiving
instrument.
morse telegraphy became the standard method of electrical communication in both
the United States and Europe due to its simplicity and ability to work on inferior quality
wires. In 1851, countries in Europe adopted a new code known as “continental” or
“international” code. This new code was a modification of the original Morse. The new
code eliminated the characters using spaced dots which were found to cause errors in
transmission on undersea cables. The new code became the standard for all telegraph work
except in north america where the original Morse was used on all landline circuits (except
for undersea cable).
The applications of the Morse telegraph were many. Tha most well known of these
to the general public was the commercial telegram service. The railroads were an early and
enthusiastic user of the Morse system which improved the efficiency and safety of railroad
operations. The Associated Press was originally an alliance of Morse telegraph services
and operators dedicated to news dispatches. Industry found the telegraph indispensable
for
the transmission of business related communication including information on stocks and
commodities. The American civil war was the one of the first demonstrations of the
military value of the telegraph in the control of troop deployment and intelligence. Even
the flow of oil through pipelines was controlled by Morse telegraph.