Photolithography was widely available in the later 19th century (I don't know
just when it was invented); before that, regular lithography was available
(discovered in 1799). See the extended essay on newspaper publishing in the Arab
world in *Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution*, ed. Hanebutt-Benz
et al. (2002).

There must be an "Indian" neighborhood in Boston, where any newsstand will have
Pakistani newspapers. I'd be surprised if typesetting in an accceptable-looking
nasta`liq is available -- if only because words or short phrases occupy diagonal
spaces within each right-to-left line.
 --
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@...




________________________________
From: Nicholas Bodley <nbodley@...>
To: qalam@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, May 25, 2011 12:57:49 PM
Subject: Re: World's last handwritten newspaper

 
On Tue, 24 May 2011 22:44:58 -0400, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@...> wrote:

> Photolithography.

I'm surprised that it was practical that long ago. Photostats were well
established, probably comfortably before 1924, but they were for
quite-small runs, at most.
It wasn't by letterpress, using photoetched plates, probably copper, or
even mimeograph?

I'm out of my specialty (electronics), but it seems that offset
lithography didn't really come into its own until maybe the 1940s, or even
past-WW II. IIrc, Multilith was a significant brand name. Of course, there
have been other kinds of lithography for a long time; think lithographic
crayons and stones. Nevertheless, I'll surely take Peter's word for it.

I'd love to correspond with the newspaper, but surely not about anything
trivial. (I'd really like to obtain a single copy, as a specimen of Urdu
calligraphy!)

Is computer-typeset Urdu acceptable esthetically? I well recall when all
Urdu newspapers were handwritten.

Best regards to all,

--
Nicholas Bodley _.=|*|=._ Waltham, Mass.
who well remembers photostats and
pre-Xerox copiers




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