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 government-funded public schools, the primary mode of education for those of the lower classes was the charity school, pioneered during the 19th century by Protestant organizations and adapted for use by the Roman Catholic Church and governmental bodies.

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 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 wristwatches became popular in the 1920s, most watches were pocket watches, which often had covers and were carried in a pocket and attached to a watch chain or watch fob.

Before the existence of pocket calculators, trigonometric tables were essential for navigation, science and engineering.

Before the police arrive he takes the key from the killer's pocket and puts it back on Emily's keychain.

( Before this rule, the Jack could not drop back into coverage until the ball is thrown or the Quarterback is no longer in the pocket, and the Jack had to stay within the box designated by the outside shoulders of the offensive line, the line of scrimmage, and five ( 5 ) yards back from the line of scrimmage.

Before leaving, they stop to collect Mary's car ; while in it, David finds in his pocket the hall pass from his previous " deal with God " with a message from Johnny written on it.

Before wristwatches became popular, gentlemen kept their pocket watches in the front waistcoat pocket, with the watch on a watch chain threaded through a buttonhole.

Before that, the Canadiens of New France followed the French custom of the time, with everyone having a pocket knife ready to use when it was time to eat.

Before the first fragment, i. e. the seed, is put into the binding pocket, and other fragments can be added one by one, it is useful to identify potential problems.

Variety wrote, " Nelson Eddy, vet of films, concerts, and stage, required less than one minute to put a jam-packed audience in his hip pocket in one of the most explosive openings in this city's nitery history .... Before Eddy had even started to sing, they liked him personally as a warm human being ".

Before 1972, all Firecrafters wore a pocket flap patch on the right pocket, indicating where the member was from within the council.

Before his brief performance, during which he mostly abuses the audience, he places his beer in his pocket upside-down, spilling it down his pants.

Before the Draft Act was passed Baker had confidentially briefed governors, sheriffs, and prospective draft board members on the administration of the measure -- and the confidence was kept so well that only one newspaper learned what was going on.

Before the fight was over, the Harlem boy had a concussion and Trig was cut up badly.

Before he left the apartment he knocked on their door and asked if there was anything he could do for them.

Before he left town Pat saw to it that I was fixed up with a job.

Before the airplanes came, he said, travel in Laos was just about impossible.

Before coming on a visit to Spelman in 1885, Miss Mary had been a successful teacher in Worcester, and her position there was held open for her for a considerable period.

Before he was forty Griffith had created the art of the film.

Before appealing to the U.N. or to Russia, he first appealed to the U.S. for military help, and was rejected.

Before her chore was finished she was rescuing wind-blown sheets of music, trundling microphones about the stage, helping to move the piano and otherwise joining in the informal atmosphere.

Before ASCII was developed, the encodings in use included 26 alphabetic characters, 10 numerical digits, and from 11 to 25 special graphic symbols.

Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term " ocean " itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic.

Before he could pass the river with safety, however, it was necessary to subdue certain fortresses, one of which was for several days vigorously defended by the governor, Yussuf el-Harezmi, a Khwarezmian.

Before the 1989 series began, the win-loss ratio was almost even, with 87 wins for Australia to England's 86, 74 having been drawn.

Before the late modern era, the abbot was treated with the utmost reverence by the brethren of his house.

Before the creation of the world, God was all by Himself, in a Self-absorbed state.

Before the Tennessee electorate voted on secession, Johnson, at his peril, toured the state, speaking in opposition to the measure, contending it was unconstitutional.

Before his death, he was absolved from the excommunication ; moreover, the Pope also promised that the King of Hungary and his relatives would not be excommunicated without the special permission of the Pope.

Before the 2007 season began, Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL after pleading guilty to charges involving dog fighting in the state of Virginia.

Before the War, Paul was a creative, sensitive, and passionate person, writing poems and having a clear love for his family.

Before the war Tjaden was a locksmith.