Comment by adgjlsfhk1
20 hours ago
the other part is that numbers and symbols were very much not the priority. The printing press was for books, magazines etc. math remained hand written until the computer
20 hours ago
the other part is that numbers and symbols were very much not the priority. The printing press was for books, magazines etc. math remained hand written until the computer
Nope, not at all. Monotype had a special system for doing math in hot metal typesetting. With handset type it was possible, but very time-consuming. You can find typeset mathematics going back centuries before the computer. There were also (somewhat impractical) systems for setting music with metal type although engraving was more common because of the interactions of lines and symbols.