Advances in technology Print

A printing press is a machine for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print material such as paper or cloth, thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as the most influential events in the second millennium AD, revolutionising the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.

The printing press was first used in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw presses. Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed a complete printing system, which perfected the printing process through all of its stages by adapting existing technologies to the printing purposes, as well as making groundbreaking inventions of his own. His newly devised hand mould made for the first time possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities, a key element in the profitability of the whole printing enterprise.

The mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in history in assembly line-style. A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by typographic hand-printing and a few by hand-copying. Books of bestselling authors like Luther or Erasmus were sold by the hundreds of thousands in their lifetime.

This is a printing press from 1811.

The printing press advanced into the rolling print press.

A rotary printing press is a printing press in which the images to be printed are curved around a cylinder. Printing can be done on large number of materials, including paper, cardboard, and plastic. Substrates can be sheet feed or unwound on a continuous roll through the press to be printed and further modified if required (e.g. die cut, overprint varnished, embossed). Printing presses that use continuous rolls are sometimes referred to as "web presses". Rotary drum printing was invented by Richard March Hoe in 1843, perfected in 1846, and patented in 1847. (Note – Some sources describe Parisian 'Hippolyte Auguste Marinoni', (1823, 7 January 1904) as the inventor of the Rotary printing press.

This is a rolling print press

The rolling print press advanced into electronic print.

Printed electronics is a set of printing methods used to create electrical devices on various substrates. Printing typically uses common printing equipment or other low-cost equipment suitable for defining patterns on material, such as screen printing, flexography, gravure, offset lithography and ink jet. Electrically functional electronic or optical inks are deposited on the substrate, creating active or passive devices, such asthin film transistors or resistors. Printed electronics is expected to facilitate widespread, very low-cost, low-performance electronics for applications such as flexible displays, smart labels, decorative and animated posters, and active clothing that do not require high performance.

This is a electronic printer