Which printer create an image on a paper by striking the paper with a metal?
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A printer is an output peripheral device that is used to create permanent texts or graphics on paper. Show
There are mainly two types of printers – impact and non-impact printers. Let us discuss them one by one. Impact PrintersSuch printers have mechanical components that are always in direct contact with the paper. The ink ribbon inside the printer is pressed against the surface of the paper. The ink gets transferred on the paper and that is how it gets printed. Daisy Wheel PrinterThe daisy wheel printer is one of the oldest types of printer. The name is derived from its resemblance to a daisy flower. It first emerged in the 1970s and was used inside word processors, computers, and electronic typewriters. These printers were quite slow and noisy and were quickly replaced by the laser printers later. Dot Matrix PrinterThe dot matrix printer is another type of impact printer and resembles the daisy printer. It consists of pins with characters attached to them. These characters are made of small dots hence the name. these pins are arranged in single or multiple vertical rows. The only advantage of these printers is their ability to print multiple copies of text at the same time by carbon copying. Non-impact PrintersThe non-impact printers are completely different from the impact printers as they have no moving mechanical parts as well as no direct contact of ink roll with paper. These printers use various technologies like chemical, electrostatic, and xerographic technologies to print. Inkjet PrintersThe inkjet printers do not get in direct contact with the paper. Instead, small droplets of ink are shot towards the paper through an orifice and the print head is moved along the paperback and forth speedily as well. Laser PrintersLaser printers are the electrostatic type of printers. These are used to create high-definition print by using laser technology. A laser beam is directed towards a negatively charged cylinder to create an image that is to be created.
Other than this, laser printers are smear-proof due to the use of laser technology instead of ink roll. The quality of the print is also high which makes laser printers even more desirable. ConclusionNon-impact printers are more widely used than impact printers for the following reasons-
 Kuldeep Rana Kuldeep is the founder and lead author of ArtOfTesting. He is skilled in test automation, performance testing, big data, and CI-CD. He brings his decade of experience to his current role where he is dedicated to educating the QA professionals. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. An Epson MX-80, a classic model that remained in use for many years. IBM sold it as their IBM 5152.[1] A rail ticket printed with dot matrix printer A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires.[2][3] Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon and the paper, so that each pin makes a small dot on the paper. The combination of these dots forms a dot matrix image. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers.[4] While inkjet and laser printers technically exhibit dot matrix printing, they work differently than impact "dot matrix printers" and can deposit ink or toner at higher dot resolutions more quickly, with less inherent noise. The impact printer has the ability to make copies using multi-part forms, unlike an inkjet or laser printer.[5] History[edit]In the 1970s and 1980s, dot matrix impact printers were generally considered the best combination of cost and versatility, and until the 1990s were by far the most common form of printer used with personal and home computers.[6][7] The first impact dot matrix printer was the Centronics 101.[8][9] Introduced in 1970,[10] it led to the design of the parallel electrical interface that was to become standard on most printers until it was displaced well over two decades later by the Universal Serial Bus (USB). Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was another major vendor, albeit with a focus on use with their PDP minicomputer line.[11] Their LA30 30 character/second (CPS) dot matrix printer, the first of many, was introduced in 1970. In the mid-1980s, dot-matrix printers were dropping in price,[3][12] and began to outsell daisywheel printers, due to their higher speed and versatility.[13] Increased pincount of the printhead from 7, 8, 9 or 12 pins to 18, 24, 27, or 36 permitted superior print quality, which was necessary for success in Asian markets to print legible CJKV characters.[14] Epson's 24-pin LQ-series rose to become the new de facto standard, at 24/180 inch (per pass - 7.5 lpi). Not only could a 24-pin printer lay down a denser dot-pattern in a single-pass, it could simultaneously cover a larger area and print more quickly. Although the text quality of a 24-pin was still visibly inferior to a true letter-quality printer such as a daisy wheel or laser printer, print quality was greatly superior to a 9-pin printer. As manufacturing costs declined, 24-pin printers gradually replaced 9-pin printers. By the dawn of the 1990s, inkjet printers became more common as PC printers.[15][16] Unlike the LA30's 80-column, uppercase-only 5x7 dot matrix, DEC's product line grew. New models included:
The DECwriter LA30 was a 30 character per second dot matrix printing terminal introduced in 1970 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, Massachusetts[18] It printed 80 columns of uppercase-only 7×5 dot matrix characters across a unique-sized paper. The printhead was driven by a stepper motor and the paper was advanced by a noisy solenoid ratchet drive. The LA30 was available with both a parallel interface (LA30-P) and a serial interface (LA30-S); however, the serial LA30 required the use of fill characters during the carriage-return. In 1972, a receive-only variation named LA30A became available. The LA30 was followed in 1974 by the LA36,[19] which achieved far greater commercial success,[20] becoming for a time the standard dot matrix computer terminal. The LA36 used the same print head as the LA30 but could print on forms of any width up to 132 columns of mixed-case output on standard green bar fanfold paper.[20] The carriage was moved by a much-more-capable servo drive using a DC electric motor and an optical encoder / tachometer. The paper was moved by a stepper motor. The LA36 was only available with a serial interface but unlike the earlier LA30, no fill characters were required. This was possible because, while the printer never communicated at faster than 30 characters per second, the mechanism was actually capable of printing at 60 characters per second. During the carriage return period, characters were buffered for subsequent printing at full speed during a catch-up period. The two-tone buzz produced by 60-character-per-second catch-up printing followed by 30-character-per-second ordinary printing was a distinctive feature of the LA36, quickly copied by many other manufacturers well into the 1990s. Most efficient dot matrix printers used this buffering technique. Digital technology later broadened the basic LA36 line into a wide variety of dot matrix printers. The DEC LA50 was designed to be a "compact, dot matrix"[11] printer. When in graphic mode (as opposed to text mode), the printhead can generate graphic images. When in (bitmap) graphics mode, the LA50 can receive and print Sixel[21] graphics format. The Wikipedia logo, converted to Sixel format Centronics 101[edit]The Centronics 101[22] (introduced 1970) was highly innovative and affordable at its inception. Some selected specifications:
IBM 5103[edit]The IBM 5103[23] was the only IBM printer that could be attached to the IBM 5100, an early day portable computer. Printing was 8 DPI, 10 pitch, 6 LPI, and capable of printing bidirectionally from a 128 character set. Two models were offered:[24] 80 and 120 characters per second.[25] Near Letter Quality (NLQ)[edit]Near Letter Quality mode—informally specified as almost good enough to be used in a business letter[26]—endowed dot-matrix printers with a simulated typewriter-like quality. By using multiple passes of the carriage, and higher dot density, the printer could increase the effective resolution. In 1985, The New York Times described the use of "near letter-quality, or NLQ" as "just a neat little bit of hype"[3] but acknowledged that they "really show their stuff in the area of fonts, print enhancements and graphics." NLQ printers could generally be set to print in "draft mode", in which case a single pass of the print head per line would be used. This produced lower quality print at much higher output speed. PC usage[edit]In 1985, PC Magazine wrote "for the average personal computer user dot matrix remains the most workable choice".[1] At the time, IBM sold Epson's MX-80 as their IBM 5152.[27] Another technology, inkjet printing, which uses the razor and blades business model (give away the razor handle, make money on the razor blade)[28] has reduced the value of the low cost for the printer: "a price per milliliter on par with liquid gold" for the ink/toner.[29] Personal computers[edit]In June 1978, the Epson TX-80/TP-80,[30] an 8-pin dot-matrix printer mainly used for the Commodore PET computer, was released. This and its successor, the 9-pin MX-80/MP-80 (introduced in 1979/1980),[31] sparked the popularity of impact printers in the personal computer market.[32] The MX-80 combined affordability with good-quality text output (for its time). Early impact printers (including the MX) were notoriously loud during operation, a result of the hammer-like mechanism in the print head. The MX-80 even inspired the name of a noise rock band.[33] The MX-80's low dot density (60 dpi horizontal, 72 dpi vertical) produced printouts of a distinctive "computerized" quality. When compared to the crisp typewriter quality of a daisy-wheel printer, the dot-matrix printer's legibility appeared especially bad. In office applications, output quality was a serious issue, as the dot-matrix text's readability would rapidly degrade with each photocopy generation. PC Software[edit]Initially, third-party printer enhancement software offered a quick fix to the quality issue. General strategies were:
Some newer dot-matrix impact printers could reproduce bitmap images via "dot-addressable" capability. In 1981, Epson offered a retrofit EPROM kit called Graftrax to add this to many early MX series printers. Banners and signs produced with software that used this ability, such as Broderbund's Print Shop, became ubiquitous in offices and schools throughout the 1980s. As carriage speed increased and dot density increased (from 60 dpi up to 240 dpi), with some adding color printing, additional typefaces allowed the user to vary the text appearance of printouts. Proportional-spaced fonts allowed the printer to imitate the non-uniform character widths of a typesetter, and also darker printouts. 'User-downloadable fonts' gave until the printer was powered off or soft-reset. The user could embed up to 2 NLQ custom typefaces in addition to the printer's built-in (ROM) typefaces. Upper: Inmac ink ribbon cartridge with black ink for Dot matrix printer. Lower: Inked and folded, the ribbon is pulled into the cartridge by the roller mechanism to the left Contemporary use[edit]The desktop impact printer was gradually replaced by the inkjet printer. When Hewlett-Packard's patents expired on steam-propelled photolithographically produced ink-jet heads,[when?] the inkjet mechanism became available to the printer industry. For applications that did not require impact (e.g. carbon-copy printing), the inkjet was superior in nearly all respects: comparatively quiet operation, faster print speed, and output quality almost as good as a laser printer. By 1995, inkjet technology had surpassed dot matrix impact technology in the mainstream market and relegated dot matrix to niche applications.[34] As of 2021, dot matrix impact technology remains in use in devices and applications such as:
Thermal printing is gradually supplanting them in some of these applications, but full-size dot-matrix impact printers are still used to print multi-part stationery. For example, dot matrix impact printers are still used at bank tellers and auto repair shops, and other applications where use of tractor feed paper is desirable such as data logging and aviation. Most of these printers now come with USB interfaces as a standard feature, to facilitate connections to modern computers without legacy ports. Which printer uses metal pins?Dot Matrix Printers
It uses an array of metal pins known as printhead to strike an inked printer ribbon and produce dots on the paper. These combinations of dots form the desired shape on the paper. Generally they print with a speed of 50 to 500 characters per second as per the quality of the printing is desired.
Which printer uses metal pins to strike an inked ribbon to make dots on a piece of paper?A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon and the paper, so that each pin makes a small dot on the paper.
What are impact printers used for?An impact printer strikes a molded letter, made of plastic or metal, against paper through an inked ribbon, producing a printed character. Impact printing saw wide use in commercial data processing, personal desktop printing and early forms of word processing.
What are two 2 types of impact printers?The three most common forms of impact printers are dot-matrix, daisy-wheel, and line printers.
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