The Medici Press in Rome produced the first Arabic printed books with movable type. Because Arabic is a cursive script in which many letters are connected, Arabic types were much more complex than Latin ones. Printing in Arabic did not catch on in…
By 1894, Emile Berliner manufactured what he called ‘gramophone’, a device to play back recordings on discs. This new product was eagerly adopted in Egypt, too: The earliest advertisements for audio recordings on discs date to 1905, but the…
Until the mid-19th century, copying drawings was done by skilled draftsmen until the invention of the cyanotype process by Sir John Herschel in 1842. The actual process is similar to developing a photograph: The original drawing was done on tracing…
In 1928, IBM introduced a new format of punch card, which became the standard for years to come. In Egypt, AUC was an early adopter of computer technology: Around 1968, the University purchased the NCR Century 100 mainframe, the first in the country,…
This twenty-volume Arabic dictionary was printed at the Bulaq Press, established during the reign of Mohamed Ali in 1820. The first publication by the press appeared in 1822.
After its introduction in 1923, Kodak’s 16mm film became the new standard for amateur filmmakers. The new film consisted of a base of non-combustible acetate plastic, a much safer alternative to the dangerously flammable cellulose nitrate used in…