Since Gothenburg invented the printing press in the 15th Century the printed word has been an instrument for wide 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 visible making the output of documents slow, high-priced to furnish or copy and therefore exclusive. Nowadays we take for granted the easy way that printer/copiers furnish for documents used in the home, in schools, or in offices.
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Nevertheless in spit of the much-hyped coming of the paperless office with the amelioration of internet technology, file sharing and online document warehouse there are times when an old-fashioned piece of paper with printed words on it is still needed. It became much easier to furnish printed copies of leading documenrs generated on a Pc with the coming 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 doubt about who positively invented the dot matrix printing system. Generally, though, the consensus is that it was the Japanese enterprise Epson. They were fairly unsophisticated and very slow by today's standards.
For most home and office printing they have been supplanted 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 complicated metal keys stunning the paper noise was also a primary qoute especially for a larger, office printer. The paper feed mechanism and paper jamming were also a coarse qoute 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 enterprise to fix.
There were some technological improvements over time. The developments boosted the carriage speed, increased the estimate 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 easy uses, the dot matrix printer has been largely supplanted by ink jet and laser printing.
The most ecconomic form of printer for the home or office Pc user is the inkjet printer. Inkjet printers consist of 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 follow is much great quality print at much faster speeds and good quality colour printing along with photographs and other optical images and all at a much lower cost.
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers
Printer and Copier Technology Has advanced Rapidly Since the Days of Dot Matrix Printing