Before the advent of printing, breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of Christ or the saints, or stories from the Bible.

Before the advent of rock and roll, concept albums had their original heyday in jazz of the early to mid ' 50s with artists such as Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra, the latter of whom would record numerous concept albums for Capitol throughout the last half of the ' 50s such as In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Where Are You?

Before the advent of fast computing machines, solving a dynamical system required sophisticated mathematical techniques and could be accomplished only for a small class of dynamical systems.

Before the advent of computer filter synthesis tools, graphical tools such as Bode plots and Nyquist plots were extensively used as design tools.

Before the advent of machine tools, metal was worked manually using the basic hand tools of hammers, files, scrapers, saws and chisels.

Before the advent of modern computers numerical methods often depended on hand interpolation in large printed tables.

Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie ( 1589 ), the leading work of literary criticism of the Elizabethan period and an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote " commendably well " circulated their poetry only among their friends, " as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned " ( Book 1, Chapter 8 ).

Before the advent of wax candles in the 14th century, this office was said in the dark or with minimal lighting ; and monks were expected to memorise everything.

Before the advent of direct-dialed long distance calls, a subscriber would need to contact the long-distance operator in order to place a toll call.

Before the advent of the pocket calculator, it was the most commonly used calculation tool in science and engineering.

Before the advent of the British, no empire based in mainland India had controlled any part of what now makes up the country's Northeast, part of the reason for the ongoing insurgency in Northeast India.

Before the advent of modern antibiotics, oil of thyme was used to medicate bandages.

Before the advent of the touchpad, small trackballs were common on portable computers, where there may be no desk space on which to run a mouse.

" Before the advent of Islam, the city was known as Yathrib but was personally renamed by Muhammad.

Before the advent of the CCD beam profiler, the beam width was estimated using the knife-edge technique: slice a laser beam with a razor and measure the power of the clipped beam as a function of the razor position.

Before the advent of DVD and Blu-ray, the Video CD ( abbreviated as VCD, and also known as View CD, Compact Disc digital video ) became the first format for distributing films on standard 120 mm optical discs.

Before the advent of artificial refrigeration, Madeira wine was particularly prized in areas where it was impractical to construct wine cellars ( as in parts of the southern United States ) because, unlike many other fine wines, it could survive being stored over hot summers without significant damage.

Before the advent of anesthesia, surgery was a traumatically painful procedure and surgeons were encouraged to be as swift as possible to minimize patient suffering.

Before the advent of VLSI devices, TTL integrated circuits were a standard method of construction for the processors of mini-computer and mainframe processors ; such as the DEC VAX and Data General Eclipse, and for equipment such as machine tool numerical controls, printers and video display terminals.

Before the advent of modern pipes, water was brought from an outdoor source such as wells, pumps or springs.

Before the advent of disk operating systems and the ability to record large data files, core dumps were paper printouts of the contents of memory, typically arranged in columns of octal or hexadecimal numbers ( a " hex dump "), sometimes accompanied by their interpretations as machine language instructions, text strings, or decimal or floating-point numbers ( cf.

Before the advent of the modern critical edition of historical Roman works, AUC was indiscriminately added to them by earlier editors, making it appear more widely used than it actually was.

Before the advent of the codex ( book ), Latin and Greek script was written on scrolls.

Before the advent of radio, carrier pigeons were frequently used on the battlefield as a means for a mobile force to communicate with a stationary headquarters.

Before being daughter, wife, or mother, before being cultured ( a word now bereft both socially and politically of the sheen you children of frontiersmen bestowed on it ), before being sorry for the poor, progressive about public health, and prettily if somewhat imprecisely humanitarian, indeed first and foremost, you were a lady.

Before making the news public Sherman sent an officer with the note to Thomas.

Before the Civil War, baseball competed for public interest with cricket and regional variants of baseball, notably town ball played in Philadelphia and the Massachusetts Game played in New England.

Before becoming public, the movement was secretive and held closed meetings in what was known as Sessions of Wisdom.

Before the revolution Mubarak tolerated limited political activity by the Brotherhood for his first two terms, but then moved more aggressively to block its influence ( arguably leading to its recent rise in public support ).

Before his death, Meher Baba had made extensive preparations for a public darshan program to be held in Poona ( now Pune ), India.

There is a minimum share capital for public limited companies: Before it can start business, it must have allotted shares to the value of at least £ 50, 000.

Before World War II, rickshaws were an important part of urban public transportation.

Before the construction of the North Portico, most public events were entered from the South Lawn, which was graded and planted by Thomas Jefferson.

Before the end of a winless 1991 season Prost was fired by Ferrari for his public criticism of the team.

Before the marriage of Lady Diana Spencer to her grandson Prince Charles, and after Diana's death, Queen Elizabeth – known for her personal and public charm – was by far the most popular member of the royal family.

Before the 1880s mortality rates in lying-hospitals would reach unacceptably high levels and became an area of public concern.

Before the marching commences, the members of the Royal Family and public sing the national anthem before the Royal Delegation lead out after the main service.

Before the congress was convened, the SED had conducted a " People's Discussion " in order openly to air public concerns related to East Germany's responsibility in honoring the final document of the Helsinki conference.

Before his death the press and public had paid little attention to the extreme risks we took.

Before King Sisyphus died, however, he had told his wife to throw his naked body into the middle of the public square ( purportedly as a test of his wife's love for him ).

Before public electric service was available, a diesel powered generator fed street lights ( and some homes?

Before the establishment of centralized post offices, local offices were established in general stores, railroad depots and other public venues in densely populated areas.

Before the 2008-2009 school year, the arrangement of public schools was as follows:

Before Cullowhee Valley, the public school was in Cordelia Camp Laboratory School from 1964 until 1994, McKee Training School from 1939 until 1964, and Cullowhee Training School from 1923 until 1939.

Before 1894, students had two public school options.

Before Stewart's death, a museum to his memory was opened on the third floor of the local public library, and a bronze statue of Stewart was erected in his honor at the county courthouse during his 75th birthday.

Before 1915, no public water or sewer system was available, and water came from private wells or from nearby springs.

Before the educational system of Byron was moved to Cowley, public education in the town of Byron was provided by Big Horn County School District # 1.