The Clix Cafe

Technology has Advanced Rapidly Since the Days of Dot Matrix Printing and Copying

Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers

Since the invention of the printing press by Gothenberg in the 15th Century the printed word has been an instrument for widespread literacy and the spread of information.

Previously records had been kept on parchment, made out of dried and cured animal skins, which were expensive, hand-lettered and illustrated making the production of documents slow, costly to produce or copy and therefore exclusive. Nowadays we take for granted the easy access that printer/copiers provide for documents used in the home, in schools, or in offices.

However, despite the much-heralded advent of the “paperless” office with the development of internet technology, file sharing and online document storage there are times when there is still no substitute for an old-fashioned piece of paper with printed words on it. It became much easier to produce printed copies of important documenrs generated on a PC with the advent of the photocopier and printer, which allowed multiple copies to be printed on site without the need to go to a ommercial printer or to typesetting.

Dot matrix printers were the first form of copy printing to be used in the early 1970s and worked by activating small pins in the printer head that physically stamped the ink onto the page. There is some confusion about who actually invented the dot matrix system. Generally, though, the consensus is that it was the Japanese company Epson. They were fairly unsophisticated and very slow by today’s standards.

For most home and office printing they have been replaced by inkjet and laser printing technology, but they are still used in shops at checkout tills and in bank ATM machines. Their main disadvantages included slow speed, noise, low quality print, particularly for pictures and frequent paper jams. The slow speed was because each dot was individually printed, so it took time to print even one page of paper.

Because the method involved metal keys striking the paper noise was also a significant problem especially for a larger, office printer. The paper feed mechanism and paper jamming were also a common problem because in the early days the paper was a roll fixed in place through holes along its edges and held there by pins on two wheels that fed the paper through the machine. Even the smallest tear or misalignment could cause a jam that was a messy business to fix.

There were some technological improvements over time. The developments boosted the carriage speed, increased the number of type options and increased the density of dots from 60 dots per inch (dpi) to 240 dpi.

Inevitable although fster carriage speeds brought faster printing, they also increased the volume of noise. Nowadays, of course, apart from very specific and simple uses, the dot matrix printer has been largely replaced by ink jet and laser printing.

For the home or office PC user the most economic form of printer is the inkjet printer. Inkjet printers contain cartridges for black and colour printing, depending on the type of printer. Cartridges spray ink onto the paper, greatly reducing the noise factor and speeding up printing.

The result is much better quality print at much faster speeds and good quality colour printing including photographs and other visual images and all at a much lower cost.

About the Author

Firstcopy, Cambridge, UK
supplies a range of sophisticated printers and copiers essential to businesses throughout East Anglia.
Ali Withers
looks at the development of printer technology, which has come a long way since the early days of dot matrix printing.

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