subject: Types Of Printers Through The Ages [print this page] Since the initiation of personal computers the use of printers has increased tremendously. During the last 20 years or so the computer technology has advanced manifolds and so has its peripherals. These are the most commonly used output devices which allow users to save their data on a paper as a hard copy. The computer printer technology has advanced by bounds and leaps to a point where all other printing machines have almost been out casted.
Types of computer printers
There are basically two types of printer which are:
Impact
Non-impact
Impact printers
The history of impact printers go back to the 50s when the first computer was invented and put to use. The basic technology was pretty much the same as used in typewriters and telex machines. Thin wires or pins struck the paper through an inked ribbon and left an impression on the paper resulting in an image. The quality and variety of the Impact printers improved as the quantity of pins per inch increased. Following are the types of impact printers of which some are no longer in use while dot matrix printers are still popular:
Dot matrix
Drum
Chain
Daisy wheel
The reason why the other models have slowly been out casted is that they were slow, noisy and large in size. Although the quality was in case of text printing was good but image printing was not up to the mark. But in all cases the printing cost was low.
Non-impact printers
We all have seen and used these kinds of printers which are currently very popular. In these printers there is no direct contact of any part with the paper, except for the printer ink or the laser toner. As most people believe that the non-impact printer technology is new. The fact is that the technology goes back to 1969 when the first laser toner printer was launched. Basically the non-impact printers are of two types:
Inkjet
LaserJet
The ink jet use printer ink which is sprayed in form of fine droplets and then then dried while the laser Jet use laser toners which are much faster in printing and give excellent results in both quality and speed. At the same time these are economical in use as compared to the inkjet because printer ink is a bit costly especially when it comes to color printing and also require expensive printing paper for better results.
The best part about the laser toner using machines is that they are small in size, fast in printing and very inexpensive to use when it comes to bulk printing. Almost all offices with huge printing requirements prefer to use these.
The latest technology is called the home office machines which have multiple functions such as printing, copying, fax and scanning. All these operations performed through one machine make these a perfect piece of equipment for use in small offices to perform all these functions without investing in four different machines.
