On 2016-07-08 4:33 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
On Jul 8,
2016, at 3:13 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 07/08/2016 11:46 AM, Paul Berger wrote:
Before displaywriter the OP division of IBM
produced the Office
system 6 which had a really cool inkjet printer.... as long as you
didn't have to fix them service reps called them "Spray and pray"
They where not a thermal inkjet like most modern ones, but rather
used a pressurized ink system to force the ink through nozzles on the
print head, I saw one operating without the shroud around the
printhead that sucked back overspray, it was really cool the print
head moved along silently and the character just appeared on the
page.
I recall seeing the IBM inkjet printer at a late 70s NCC. IIRC it used
electrostatics to deflect the ink drops to their proper position.
I saw that
technology described in a Dutch magazine ("De Ingenieur" = "the
engineer") around 1972 or so. As PB mentioned, it uses a shroud or baffle, since the
ink stream is always active; the control voltage steers the drops towards the paper or
towards the baffle. Ink hitting the baffle was recirculated, I think.
Yes that is
correct some of the droplets where purposely steered into
the "gutter" and yes it was by electrostatic deflection.. IBM would used
the same sort of system in the Item Numbering Feature (INF) on the 3890
cheque sorter to print a number on the back of documents on the fly.
This machine could process up to 2400 cheaque sized documents a minute
so they are really moving along... print quality was not quite as good.
...
Initially, I think the biggest advantages of the early wapros was the
ability to make edits to existing documents and to create multiple
copies of the same document. I wonder how many of the young 'uns here
have experienced the joys of carbon paper (especially when accidentally
reversed) or having to re-type a whole page of text to make a few simple
edits.
A bit like editing text (programs) on paper tape...
I may have missed it, but I haven't seen the IBM MT/ST mentioned. That's
certainly a rather old system, dating back to 1964 according to Wikipedia, which says
it's the oldest word processor (and references an article about WP history).
I
remember some of the older OP techs talking about the MT/ST, the tape
reader was entirely electro-mechanical and read in stripes across the
tape. This would be a precursor of the Magcard Selectric and the Memory
typewriter. The later had a wide loop of tape inside an enlarged
selectric case for storage.
Paul.
paul