>Ink?! When I was in school we wrote on clay tablets with reed styli. We had to maintain the styli with copper knives. Later, even the most reactionary teachers would let us use the new fancy bronze knives.

Copper? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down.

JFYI:

https://tinyapps.org/blog/200702250700_why_in_my_day.html