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Can the Scroll Make a Comeback, with Some Modern Updates?

The Rollgut: Onboard utensil storage, looseleaf capabilities with magnetic capture and more

By Rain Noe - September 7, 2017

in Object Culture | Crowdfunding | Materials

Here's a quick, carefully-researched history of writing surfaces:

1. Sand

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You've finally learned written characters, leaving your Neanderthal relatives in the dust. You use a stick to scratch out an inspirational message in the sand outside your hut, but when you bring your friends by to show it to them, a freaking lizard has crawled across it and erased it.

2. Stone Tablets

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Now you can tap out your poetry on a much more permanent medium. The problem is that you tore a rotator cuff trying to carry three of these to the village talent show. Also, erasing old ones is a real pain in the neck.

3. Papyrus Scrolls

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Awesome invention! Rollable, lightweight, portable. It's a bit of a pain that they keep curling up when you're trying to read them, but at least you can accidentally drop these on your foot with no consequences.

The scroll was of course replaced by the codex, then notebooks, then smartphone apps. But could the venerable scroll make a comeback? Inventor Thomas Sommer hopes so.

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Berlin-based Sommer went through a "digital de-tox" four years ago; when ideas popped into his head, he tried forcing himself to sketch them out on paper rather than firing up the CAD. He then struck upon the idea for the Rollgut:

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(If you're wondering why the odd moniker, "gut" means "good" in German. Additionally, it's a bit of play on words as "vollgut" means "very good" in German.)

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I must say I'm surprised at how plausible Sommer makes the Rollgut look. I'm sure there are some UX obstacles that would prevent mass uptake, but kudos to Sommer for trying to go tactile over digital.

There are three different models of Rollgut:

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Thus far Sommer has $12,426 in pledges towards an $83,372 goal, with 26 days left to pledge.

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George Mokray

7 years ago

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The great Scribner's editor of the 1930s, Max Perkins, liked the idea of teletype paper as a way to write novels in the typewriter age. Jack Kerouac actually used that technique for On the Road.

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Eric Strebel

7 years ago

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Naaaaaa, curled up parer sucks! why would I want that? silly

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Jay Davis

7 years ago

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Well if they get flexible OLED/EInk going then you could get digital Papyrus like scrolls.

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