A triumphalist account by Webster, a frequent writer for the computer printer industry, who finds that such printers are usually relegated to footnotes in histories of technology. He argues that digital printing is not simply another development of Gutenberg's achievements, but a quantum leap that frees printing from the limitations of earlier technologies such as the printing press, photographic processes, and lithography. Bracketed by chapters on precursors and the future, he takes each decade in turn from the 1950s to the 1990s. Recent color decades are illustrated in color; earlier decades in monochrome. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)