Its more like older generations of all sorts nailed cursive. Remember, back then 99% of all writing was handwriting. Even those who had typewriters only used them to make final drafts of documents - the first versions were all handwritten. The fact that people's handwriting back then was so good comes from them having ample opportunity to practice good handwriting.
I actually grew up there, and I remember that my teacher's would take points off for anything less than awesome handwriting. During math exams we'd basically do all the work on a separate sheet/scratch sheet and then copy it over to the final notebook we'd submit for grading. Great handwriting and neat notes were considered a sign of an educated person... (With the exception of doctors, they were required to have crazy handwriting, at least for prescriptions)
It is very nice to see the notebooks. I grew up hearing stories about him from my mother, herself a math teacher. I especially remember learning about Ramanujan number 1729 at a very young age (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1729_%28number%29) and naively trying to invent my own number :-)
Wikipedia says "Since paper was very expensive, Ramanujan would do most of his work and perhaps his proofs on slate, and then transfer just the results to paper".
I want to add here , he use to write on napkins , used paper from patties while in canteen. He use to write on same paper with 4 different pen so that he could save page as much.Most time all thing can go in his head only.
I first learned about this guys work in The Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy. Excellent read for anyone interested in these topics. I understand maybe one hundredth of the mathematics and it's still seriously fascinating.
This guy should be a hero to everyone who has taught themselves programming, computers, business...anything. Though he was already a mathematical powerhouse as a teenager, he still dropped out of college and endured very hard times while he wrote these notebooks. Ramanujan was well below "ramen profitable," and very much a "solo founder."
