In this post printer definition and impact printer are explain. Today wireless printing technology makes the task of printing from a Notebook computer, PDA, Digital camera, or Smartphone much easier. The common wireless technologies for printing are Bluetooth and Infrared. In Bluetooth printing, a computer and devices do not have to be aligned with each other rather they need to be within an approximate 30-foot range. With infrared printing a printer communicates with a device using infrared light waves.

Printer

What Is Printer?

Printers are the devices that produce hard copy output on different types of papers. Printed documents are essential in many working environments, where people share reports, budgets, memos and other types of information.

Some important factors generally considered while purchasing a printer are :

Speed of the printer.
Image quality/resolution of the printer
Cost of printer

The speed of the printer is either measured in character per second, lines per minute, or pages per minute.

Types Of Printer

There is divided into two parts:-

Impact Printer
None Impact Printer

Impact printer

Impact printers, which print by touching the print head to paper, are called Impact printers. Impact printers are further divided into two parts :-

Character Printers
Line Printers

These printers use typewriter like mechanism to print the output.

Character Printers

Character printers are also called serial printers and these are printers, which print one character at a time in a serial order.
In this type of printer, the print head moves across a line while printing the characters.
The character printers speed ranges in 100 to 300 characters per second.
The advantage of character printer are following :-

Cost is very low.
They are mainly used for personal computers.

The disadvantage is, it is low speed and makes lot of noise while printing.
Now days these printers are rarely used because of speed issues and because only text is capable of being printed.

Types Of Character Printer

There us divided into two parts :-

Dot Matrix Printer
Daisy Wheel Printer

Dot matrix printer

It is one of the most widely used printers and head of these printers contains a matrix of dots or pins or hammers, that's why these printers are named dot matrix printers.
Pins and hammers of dot matrix printer are arranged in rows and columns.
Generally a dot matrix printer has 9 or 24 pins in it's head.
A character is printed by striking the appropriate number of pins against the printer head.
The continuous striking of the pins on paper, these printers produce a lot of noise.
These printers have lowest running cost. Dot matrix printers ribbon costs around 20 rupees and gives you 1000 prints.
The speed of dot matrix printers is generally in the range of 100 to 300 characters per second.
These printers have lowest running cost.
Dot matrix printers costs around 20 rupees and gives you 1000 prints.
The speed of dot matrix printers is generally in the range of 100 to 300 characters per second.
These printer are widely used in banks, organizations etc.
Dot matrix printers are specially used to print characters only; they can print images but the quality of print of the image is not so good.

Daisy Wheel Printer

It is an uncommon character printer.
It uses a circular printing mechanism, called a daisy wheel.
This printer head is in the shape of a flower.
A motor spins this wheel at a rapid rate. When the desired character is brought forward by spinning the wheel, a print hammer strikes it to produce the output.
These printers have low speed, ranges from 10, to 50 characters per second.
These printers have a defined type and set of characters and they can print the defined characters and shapes only.
No new shapes can be generated. That means you cannot print different fonts in this printer.
These printers cannot print graphics, and in general they are noisy.
Daisy wheel technology is now found only in some electronic typewriter.

Line Printer

As character printers can print only one character at a time, line printers print a line in one printing cycle.
Line printer are mostly associated with the early days of computing, but the technology is still in use.
These printer is typically enclosed in a cabinet that completely seals the unit from the outside world.
The speed of line printers ranges from 250 to 2500 lines per minutes. Different line printers have different number of character in their character set.
The commonly used line printers are chain printer and drum printer.

Types of line printer

There is divided into two parts :-

Chain Printer
Drum Printer

Chain Printer

Chain printers are the line printers that contain a moving chain called as the print chain.
The chain rotates and when the desired character comes, hammer strikes the chain and this action presses the paper against a ribbon and against the character located at that position. The result leaves an impression of the character.
When the requirements of the printed line are fulfilled, the printer carriage control moves the page to the next line position.
The chain contains multiple copies of characters to increase the speed.
More is the number of characters on the chain, lesser are the chances of full circle rotation of the chain, after printing a character.
The chain printers can print at a speed of 400 to 2500 lines per minute.

Drum Printer

A drum printer is a type of line printer that prints by striking the paper against the inked ribbon.
Drum printer uses a cylindrical drum that has different characters embedded on it and these characters are arranged in different number of bands.
Print hammers are located above the paper, opposite to each band of the drum. Hammers strike the paper, along with the inked ribbon when the proper character on the drums comes at the printing position.
The disadvantages of drum printers is that they take much time to position the characters, which degrades their performance.
Drum printers have a speed of 300 to 2000 lines per minute.

In this post discuss about the definition of printer and impact printer. I hope you have learned reading to this post. If you like this post then share with your friends and you can comment any of your doubts and i will replay then at the earliest.

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What is Printer definition and types of printer | impact printer