A quick on-line search and I found out that the ubiquitous circuit board had its start in 1903 thanks to German inventor, Albert Hanson.

It looks as though a hundred and ten years later the technology might be catching up with our desktops:

The process uses an inkjet printer whose hacked cartridges lay out an ink of conductive silver (for the time being).  As a side note, a recent field trip to NYU’s Advanced Media Services revealed that one of the rapid prototyping machines uses HP inkjet cartridges to print rock-hard objects using what may have been gypsum as the binder.

In the same way that the hand-drafting of printable wiring diagrams was replaced by CAD, this printable technology would be welcomed by anyone who has ever had to figure out how to best dispose of the toxic sludge which always results from the chemical milling of copper-clad circuit boards.

Like using whale oil for lighting, some technologies should be retired.

There is a kickstarter for a promising project… heck, I want one too.

Peter Terezakis
ITP Master’s Candidate
Tisch School of the Arts
http://www.itpme.info
http://www.terezakis.com