Stephen Fry And The Gutenberg Press

Please try to keep all the discussions in the main forums on topic! If you have anything else, related to fonts, you want to share, please post it here!
Post Reply
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Stephen Fry And The Gutenberg Press

Post by William »

This post may only be of immediate interest to some readers in the United Kingdom as it concerns a BBC television programme due to be broadcast on Monday 14 April 2008. However, some BBC programmes do get broadcast in other countries as well, perhaps later, so maybe there is interest for some other readers as well.

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is running a trailer for a television programme named Stephen Fry And The Gutenberg Press. It is due to be shown at 9.00 pm on Monday 14 April 2008 on the BBC4 channel (Freeview channel 9).

It is also due to be shown again at 1.15 am and yet again at 2.45 am in the early morning of Tuesday 15 April 2008, also on the BBC4 channel.

The trailer shows papermaking, casting of metal type and making a wooden screw with a huge thread for a large wooden printing press and trying the printing press.

The BBC often repeats programmes from BBC4 on BBC2 a few days later, often at a weekend, though I have no present knowledge of whether this will happen with this particular programme.

I do not know whether the programme will be available on the web later.

Here is some text copied from the http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressr ... eval.shtml web page.
Stephen Fry And The Gutenberg Press

The Gutenberg Press was perhaps the most revolutionary machine ever invented. In Stephen Fry And The Gutenberg Press, Stephen Fry discovers the lengths to which Gutenberg went to keep his project secret, then helps to build a working model of the press and explores how print democratised knowledge by making the written word accessible to all.
William Overington

14 April 2008
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Post by William »

I watched the television programme and it was great. I feel that I learned a lot from watching it.

One point of interest was that a punch was made for a letter e, then a matrix was made and some sorts cast in type metal, reusing the same matrix.

Yet, as I understand it, there is no direct evidence that Gutenberg used reusable matices. The notion that he did might be a backwards-in-time extrapolation from later technology.

The reason that I say that is because of the research mentioned in the following thread.

viewtopic.php?t=1080

My own idea, purely hypothetical based on that research is that maybe the reason that Gutenberg used so many ligatures was that they were a cost-saving idea, simply because using them meant that fewer matrices (each of them non-reusable) were needed.

One particular item in the programme was when they unpacked that metal type which had arrived from the United States.

I wonder from where it came.

William Overington

15 April 2008
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Post by William »

Broadcasts of the Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press programme are due to take place as follows.

Today, Wednesday 16 April 2008 on at 11:50 pm on BBC4.

Sunday 20 April 2008 at 8:00 pm on BBC4.

William Overington

16 April 2008
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Post by William »

Another broadcast of the Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press programme is due to take place as follows.

Friday 25 April 2008 at 9:00 pm on BBC2.

This is a significant additional broadcast in that it is due to be on BBC2 rather than on BBC4.

The significance is that in the United Kingdom the channels BBC1 and BBC2 are available on both analogue and digital television systems, whereas BBC3 and BBC4 are only available on digital television systems.

Many people in the United Kingdom now have digital television systems, though many do not and still have analogue television systems, so a broadcast on BBC2 makes the programme available to a larger potential audience.

William Overington

21 April 2008
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Post by William »

Readers in the United Kingdom might like to know that there is another showing of the Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press programme tonight, Saturday 20 September 2008 at 7:30 pm British Summer Time on BBC2. I have only just noticed that it is on tonight. Maybe some people overseas might be able to view BBC2 as well?

William Overington

20 September 2008
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Another broadcast of the programme in the United Kingdom

Post by William »

Some readers in the United Kingdom might like to know that there is due to be another showing of the Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press programme tonight, Monday 29 December 2008 at 8:30 pm on BBC4, for one hour.

William Overington

29 December 2008
Post Reply