the.com/movable type
letters you could shuffle instead of carve — the printing press's actual superpower.
means individual reusable characters cast in metal (or carved wood) that could be arranged, inked, printed, then rearranged into something new.
from invented in china around 1040 by bi sheng using fired clay, refined in korea with bronze by the 1200s, then reinvented independently by johannes gutenberg in 1450s germany using a metal alloy and a wine-press design that finally scaled it into a revolution.
gutenberg's alloylead, tin, antimony — melted fast, cast precisely
korea firstprinted jikji in 1377, oldest surviving metal-type book
one page, hoursscribes needed days for the same page
literacy explosioneurope's book output jumped 100x within 50 years