The Technology of the Book
Paul Haeberli
Printed Books have been around for more than 1000 years, but they still have many advantages over current computer displays and digital technology.
First, let's review some of the properties of Books:
Books are portable information appliances. They can be made both small and lightweight. They are easy to carry and resistant to water. Printed books have a fluid and transparent user interface. The tactile, responsive interface of a bound book is hard to match with any modern digital technology.
The only power source a book needs is ambient light. Also, print is compatible with almost any light source. A book can be powered by sunlight, florescent light or simply a candle. The image quality available in print is also hard to match with current digital displays. High quality photographs and text are presented with unmatched fidelity.
In addition, print offers surprisingly high pixel density and bandwidth. A high quality book presents the equivalent of 18 million pixels to the user. The data bandwidth of flipping through a book is probably about 10 megabytes/second. Still, the quality of digital displays are a far cry from a simple printed page. Print provides a very high contrast low glare display of full color images and text. When will digital displays improve?
Books boot instantly. You don't have to wait 3 minutes before you start using a book. Also, books never need software upgrades. They all run version 1.0 of their OS. Also, books may be mass produced at low cost. Some systems sell for as little as $US 3.00 or $US 4.00.
Now with modern digital printing services, bound books can be manufactured with very short turnaround. Using an on demand printing service, books like GRAFICA Obscura can be produced with just 7 days from request to delivery.
One area that deserves exploration is computer connectivity with the printed medium. At SGI we think alot about connectivity to PCs and MACs and between UNIX machines. How can we connect better to the world of print? We'd like to understand new ways that computers can be made to work with books. How can digital information be presented in print form, and how can books be used to control computers?
That's what the GRAFICA Obscura Alpha 0.41 experiment is about. This 150 page perfect bound book was created from the contents of the GRAFICA Obsura web site.
The entire set of HTML documents was converted into PostScript using a hacked version of xmosaic. Links were automatically converted into page numbers to turn to. The complete web site was converted into a 62 megabyte PostScript file that was FTP'ed to a digital printing service in San Francisco where books were printed on a 600 dpi Xerox Docutech printer and bound. Each copy is original 600 dpi Docutech output. Applying modern digital printing technology allows fast turn around and incremental publishing. The first printed versions of the book were Alpha 0.41, because that edition elaborated 17 topics, and listed 24 topics to be added in the future.
Books can now be printed on demand, eliminating the costs of maintaining inventory.
Another marvelous thing about this technology is that finally the democratization of the net comes to print. Individuals can now publish printed books at a reasonable cost.
A Note on HTML:
HTML is very valuable as a content description. I hope this does not get eroded by other developments on the Web. The great thing about HTML is that it allows the information to be presented in many different ways. It can be "displayed" in audio, FAX, print, screen.
How can we extend this content description in ways that retain its strengths?
How can we make print and computers work better together? There is still a lot more work to be done. Perhaps URLs could be encoded into the images and text of a printed book, so we can hold it up to a camera and the machine knows where to go. Maybe we make it easier to take information online and move it to print.
Some things that would also be nice are better tools for creating books, faster turn around, low cost color printing, and new ways of representing interactivity in print.