On Oct 12, 2016, at 3:29 AM, jim stephens <jwsmail
at jwsss.com> wrote:
I had a 133 column line printer, and an 80 column Data Printer, Data products interfaces.
Both drums. They could both move 3 x 5 cards at 10000+ lines / min when printing < 20
columns. They were variable speed, so when something fired on the first 20 columns, such
as for addressing, the thing move like lighting.
The early PDP11 line printers were like that (20 column buffer for the 80 column model; 24
column buffer for the 132 column model). Later on they apparently went to full line
buffering because the performance oddity you mentioned disappeared.
Speaking of printer widths, the Dutch computer company Electrologica was odd in that their
systems came with line printers that were 144 columns wide. I've never seen that
anywhere else.
paul