Chapter 12- Printers

CHAPTER 12 PRINTERS INTRODUCTION Printers have been around since the early days of the computer. The first printers were actually typewriters and teletypewriters that were adapted to print binary data. These printers were often slow and noisy. Today, there are printers that print entire pages of text and/or graphics at astonishing speeds. After completing this chapter, you should be able to: Define the terms character set, font, point, and orientation as they pertain to printers Describe impact and nonimpact printers Describe the operation of line printers Describe the operation of dot matrix printers Describe the operation of daisy wheel printers Describe the operation of laser printers Describe the operation of electrothermal printers Printers are classified as impact or nonimpact printers, depending on the method used to print the characters on the paper. Impact printers use hammers or pins to strike an inked ribbon and print the character on paper. Nonimpact printers print characters using electricity, a chemical process, or a combination of both. Impact and nonimpact printers can be sub-divided into three types: Character printers Line printers Page printers Character printers output data to the printed form one character at a time, line printers print one line of information at a time, and page printers print one whole page of data at a time. Character, line, and page printers can be either impact or nonimpact printers. 12-1