HISTORY110 - Writing Tools
My hobby since my retirement as an aerospace engineer in 2000, has been “writing for fun.” This includes history papers, newspaper columns, books, and in the last few years, a blog. For all of these “products,” I used a computer with a word processor. But computers and word processors are relatively recent tools for writing. In a discussion about future blog topics the other day, Pat wondered what writers throughout history used as writing tools, and when those tools were first available. Thus, the subject of this blog, the history of writing tools. Introduction to Writing Tools First a definition: Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of human language made up of a conventional system of marks or signs. Writing is one of the things that makes our human civilization what it is. Without it, great ideas would be forgotten, information would stay at the place where the ideas originated, and we would h...
