Re:I Miss Microsoft Encarta
by thaumasiotes on Wednesday August 21, 2019 @12:57PM
(#20759044)
> The codex, handwritten, allowed random access
So do scrolls. You're not supposed to open the entire scroll at once. The codex is better at this.
> but was still phenomenally expensive to create. On the order of a million dollars per copy.
This is nonsense. You can prepare a very expensive book, but you don't have to. The idea that books were necessarily earth-shakingly expensive to create conflicts with the known reality of commercial popular novels in the ancient world.
So do scrolls. You're not supposed to open the entire scroll at once. The codex is better at this.
> but was still phenomenally expensive to create. On the order of a million dollars per copy.
This is nonsense. You can prepare a very expensive book, but you don't have to. The idea that books were necessarily earth-shakingly expensive to create conflicts with the known reality of commercial popular novels in the ancient world.