Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

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That's not what's going on. It just never occurs to most people that something might have happened outside their home.

There's a popular game, Timeline ( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128664/timeline ), involving placing events (represented on cards) in the proper chronological sequence. Due to modern sensitivities, many of the cards have titles of the form "The discovery of America (by Europeans)".

But mostly they don't. "Invention of the printing press", explicitly lacking the "(by Europeans)" rider, is located in the 15th century, several hundred years after the invention of the printing press. None of this stuff is hard to look up.

My understanding is that "invention of the printing press" generally refers to movable type, the thing that caused a revolution in the mass production of written material. Other techniques like block printing or indeed any other method of applying ink in a fixed pattern, came earlier but were not as generally useful.

Porcelain movable type had been used hundreds of years prior in China, but it never quite caught on because of the number of distinct characters needed.

Printing and movable type was first invented in China (though it failed to catch on there and as far as we know was separately reinvented in Europe). However the printing press, which is a mechanical device using movable type, was first invented by Gutenberg.

> However the printing press, which is a mechanical device using movable type, was first invented by Gutenberg.

The printing press is a mechanical device which mass-produces books by pressing inked plates against paper. Movable type is just a way to construct printing plates. It makes no difference to the press.

I'm intrigued that you believe China invented movable type without inventing a press that could use it. But suffice it to say that while movable type did not catch on in China, printing and printing presses were huge.

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