History of first use of allcomputerized typesetting 3312

Good grief, indeed.

Have you the slightest idea of what century that formula was created in?1

Or of how much of Britain's "unwritten consbreastution" had been committed to paper by then? Can you not hear the echo of at least half a millennium of written documents in those words?

Do you suppose that Newton's Principia (to name just one scientific landmark of the preceding century that I hope you have heard of) is the product of "the days when nobody could read"?

(I'll grant you the point about paper being relatively more expensive than it has been for the past century and a half or so -- but it was also better paper, and it will still be around another 400 years hence.)

As Santayana nearly wrote, those who let their fanciful notions about the past determine their view of history haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of figuring out the present.

1 No, neither have I, if the truth be told. Apparently the Act of Settlement -- not to be confused with the Act of Succession -- was pbutted by Parliament in one century, but came into effect from the beginning of that session of Parliament in the previous century -- Old Style or New Style, take your pick as (for once) it doesn't affect the outcome. Clearly the laws of England were no more meant to be understood by Americans than were the Laws of Cricket.

-- Roland HutchinsonÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊWillÊplayÊviolaÊdaÊgambaÊforÊfood.

NB mail to my.spamtrap at verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam.ÊÊIfÊyourÊmessageÊlooksÊlikeÊspamÊIÊmayÊnotÊseeÊit.