[eesmith]

The Linotype machine supported fl, ff, ffi, ℔, œ, and æ. See https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Linotype... linked to from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linotype_machine. Or see https://archive.org/details/LinotypeKeyboardPractice/page/n9... .

Even cheap printing presses could handle more than you think. Here's a type case layout from 1846, again with æ, œ, fl, ff, and ffi, fi and ffl. https://archive.org/details/printingapparatu00holtrich/page/... .

That book is for the "Parlour printing press [which] was invented by Mr. Cowper for the amusement and education of youth, by enabling them to print any little subject they had previously written, provided the printing did not exceed in size the dimensions of an ordinary duodecimo page, which measures about 5 inches by 3 inches."

[thaumasiotes]

Did it support þ? That would be the best-known example of written English being changed to accommodate a printing press rather than the other way around.

[eesmith]

No. But that doesn't really fit since þ had mostly died out by the 1300s, with only few remaining uses by Caxton's printing - long before the 1800s.

I also wouldn't call those typewriters or cheap printing presses.

[thaumasiotes]

Is there something relevant about the 1800s? I said þ was an example of the written language changing to accommodate the printing press, not changing to accommodate the 1800s.

[eesmith]

I had responded to msla's comment about "typewriters and cheap printing presses". Those didn't exist in the 1500s.

þ's disappearance from English is not due to either, though the lack of þ in available type faces was certainly an issue.

[thaumasiotes]

But the reference to "cheap printing presses" has to be interpreted as actually being a reference to type, as you have already done with your archive.org link. The press itself cannot either support or fail to support any graphical forms; there's no difference in the press whether you're using type or block printing.

Press quality issues are things like "are the surfaces flat" / "how much pressure can the press apply" / "how many pages can we press before running into a mechanical issue".

[eesmith]

I disagree. It does not have to be that. I pointed to a printing press designed for kids. That should be much cheaper than one used to print larger sizes or many copies, much less the quality of the Bible in the 1500s.

I do get your point, but I think it's still wrong to use "cheap" to refer to the typefaces available for the Caxton and KJV Bibles. I suspect they were quite expensive.

The physical press is only part of the printing cost. The Linotype typesetting machine made it possible to set an entire line of type, drawing from a 90 or so characters. While the press itself didn't care, adding new symbols required manual effort, making it more expensive.