Zane H. Healy wrote:
Were they
DOT MATRIX? I'll bet they're not big old noisy line printers
unless
they're sound covered and about 4 feet tall.
Yes they were dot matrix. I always equated line printers with dot matrix
printers. Is there a difference?
Just slightly :^) The line printers I'm most familiar with were about 6
feet wide, 3 feet deep, 5 or 6 feet high, in a sound proof enclosure, and
were impact printers.
IIRC the biggest I worked on was an impact printer with each character a
single link in a belt that made up a long loop. There were multiple
instances of the same character in the belt, and it whirled around real
fast, with a hammer behind it ramming it into the roll of inked fabric
(messy stuff). It could to single or multipart paper. The paper sat in
the bottom of the printer, and then the printer pulled it up and shot it
out the back into a stacker.
I somehow doubt it's possible for a dot matrix to even come close to the
speed of a good line printer.
Zane
And then there was the 'Talley' line printer.
A whole 132 charactior worth of a 'single dot'/charactor position metal
'comb'. The 'dot position' within the 'charactor cell' was
determined by
this 'comb' of 'dots' moving back and forth sideways (With a selenoid
foring at the proper time [one solenoid at each charactor position.)
With the verticle scanning of the charactor area accomplished by the
paper tractor moving the paper one 'dots' worth at a time. This ment 77
impacts per charactor (for a 7x11 dot matrix) But that was also 77
impact times for the whole line, because ALL the dots that were lined up
properly fired at the same time.
Heavy!!! 200+ lbs. for a 132 col (17"?/19"?) 'desk top' printer.
This is all from memory. It got sold before I left Calif. 18 years ago.
Chuck
--
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He, who will not reason, is a bigot; William Drumond,
he, who cannot, is a fool; Scottish writer
and he, who dares not, is a slave. (1585-1649)
While he that does, is a free man! Joseph P. 1955-
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Chuck Davis / Sutherlin Industries FAX # (804) 799-0940
1973 Reeves Mill Road E-Mail -- cad(a)gamewood.net
Sutherlin, Virginia 24594 Voice # (804) 799-5803