> On Oct 13, 2026, at 10:49 AM, David Sooby <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2026 at 8:29 AM David Johnson <xxxxxx@zarthani.net> wrote:
>> The first commercial photocopier was launched in 1959, so it was "newfangled" tech at the time Beam was writing. I imagine if we could read
>> his mind when he was writing that bit, I'm guessing he envisioned the device they used to be more like a small photocopying machine --
>> something like the home copy-printers many of us have collecting dust somewhere now -- rather than a hand-held smartphone. . . .
>
> Right.  Google the term "photoprint" and you'll see it's not something
> Piper made up.  It's a term for an analog photography-based printing
> technology that was, I guess, newfangled at the time he wrote the
> story.
>
> Since there's no faster-than-light "radio" communication in the
> Piperverse, the copy of the treaty (the term "photoprint" implies a
> copy printed on paper, altho it might be photography paper rather than
> typewriter paper) would have to be carried to its destination on a
> starship. <snip>
> --------------------
> —David Sooby

Yes. The earlier technology that photocopying superseded was called Photostatic copying. Photostats had been the norm since the early 1900’s and used special photographic cameras and paper to achieve remarkable results. I actually have a number of phototstats from the 1930s and the quality of reproduction is excellent but they were a bit more complicated to produce.

Tom