Printer (computing) and Related Topics

A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952

Peripheral

Auxiliary device used to put information into and get information out of a computer.

An output device provides output data from the computer, such as a computer monitor, projector, printer, headphones and computer speaker;

Line printer

Typical typeface of a drum printer with staggered characters (mainframe; about 1965)

Fragment of line printer drum showing "%" characters.

Fragment of printer band, sitting on test printout for the characters (top) and hammer flight times (bottom)

An IBM 1403 printer opened up as it would be to change paper. Note form tractors on each side of the paper and carriage control tape in upper right. Print chain is covered by full width ribbon on open gate, lower right.

A type bar line printer was incorporated in the IBM 402 and 403 accounting machines.

An IBM 716 line printer, based on the IBM 407 wheel mechanism, attached to an IBM 7090 mainframe at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center during Project Mercury.

A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line.

Metal Daisy Wheel for Xerox & Diablo printers

Daisy wheel printing

Samples of daisy wheel printer output. Actual print is much crisper than these images

The Royal LetterMaster, a budget daisy-wheel printer from the 1980s

The print-head and daisy wheel on a Xerox/Diablo D-25 printer.

Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor at Diablo Data Systems.

Blueprint

Reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets.

As computer-aided design techniques came into use, the designs were printed directly using a computer printer or plotter.

Plotter

Machine that produces vector graphics drawings.

Illustration of the layers of flex and flock foils (used in textile printing): carrier foil, colour coat & covering layer (including hot melt)

Homemade plotter using stepper motors and a ballpoint pen to draw.

This means that plotters are vector graphics devices, rather than raster graphics as with other printers.

HP LaserJet 4200 series printer, installed atop high-capacity paper feeder

Laser printing

Electrostatic digital printing process.

Gary Starkweather (seen here in 2009) invented the laser printer.

Applying a negative charge to the photosensitive drum

Laser light selectively neutralizes the negative charge on the photoreceptive drum, to form an electrostatic image

Laser unit from a Dell P1500. The white hexagon is the rotating scanner mirror.

Toner is fused onto paper with heat and pressure

Magnification of color laser printer output, showing individual toner particles comprising 4 dots of an image with a bluish background

Small yellow dots on white paper, generated by a color laser printer, are nearly invisible. (Click to see higher-resolution image)

As with digital photocopiers, laser printers employ a xerographic printing process.

Photocopier

Machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply.

DADF or Duplex Automatic Document feeder - Canon IR6000

Schematic overview of the xerographic photocopying process (step 1–4)

During the 1980s, a convergence began in some high-end machines towards what came to be called a multi-function printer: a device that combined the roles of a photocopier, a fax machine, a scanner, and a computer network-connected printer.

Personal computer

Multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use.

Commodore PET in 1983 (at the American Museum of Science and Energy), an early example of a personal computer

The 8-bit architecture Pravetz 82 computer produced in Bulgaria from 1982, in school class in the Soviet Union

The three personal computers referred to by Byte Magazine as the "1977 Trinity" of home computing: The Commodore PET, the Apple II, and the TRS-80 Model I.

The 8-bit PMD 85 personal computer produced in 1985–1990 by the Tesla company in the former socialist Czechoslovakia

Sun SPARCstation 1+ from the early 1990s, with a 25 MHz RISC processor

A portable computer Cambridge Z88 released in 1987

HP Compaq tablet PC with rotating/removable keyboard

A screenshot of the LibreOffice Writer software

A screenshot of Krita, which is a raster graphics editor.

Children being taught how to use a laptop computer in 2005. An older (1990s-era) desktop personal computer's CRT monitor is visible in the background.

Personal computers worldwide in million distinguished by developed and developing world

Practical use required adding peripherals such as keyboards, computer displays, disk drives, and printers.

Difference engine

Automatic mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions.

Closeup of the London Science Museum's difference engine showing some of the number wheels and the sector gears between columns. The sector gears on the left show the double-high teeth very clearly. The sector gears on the middle-right are facing the back side of the engine, but the single-high teeth are clearly visible. Notice how the wheels are mirrored, with counting up from left-to-right, or counting down from left-to-right. Also notice the metal tab between "6" and "7". That tab trips the carry lever in the back when "9" passes to "0" in the front during the add steps (Step 1 and Step 3).

Fully operational difference engine at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California

In 2002, the printer which Babbage originally designed for the difference engine was also completed.

Character (computing)

Unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, grapheme-like unit, or symbol, such as in an alphabet or syllabary in the written form of a natural language.

Examples of control characters include carriage return or tab, as well as instructions to printers or other devices that display or otherwise process text.