A computer usually displays its answers on a screen. If you want the computer to copy the answers onto paper, attach the computer to a printer, which is a device that prints on paper.

The typical printer looks like a typewriter but lacks a keyboard. To feed information to the printer, you type on the computer’s keyboard. The computer transmits your request through a cable of wires running from the back of the computer to the back of the printer.

A computer’s advertised price usually does not include a printer and cable. The cable costs about $8; the typical printer costs several hundred dollars.

Printers are more annoying than screens. Printers are noisier, slower, cost more, consume more electricity, need repairs more often, and require you to buy paper and ink. But you’ll want a printer anyway, to copy the computer’s answers onto paper that you can give your computerless friends. Another reason to get a printer is that a sheet of paper is bigger than a screen and lets you see more information at once.

Printer dealers

To get a printer cheaply, phone these mail-order discount dealers:

Micro Warehouse offers the greatest variety of printers but charges more than the other companies.

To get low prices locally, walk into chains of discount superstores, such as Comp USA (which sells all kinds of computer equipment) and Staples (which sells all kinds of office supplies and some computer equipment).

Three kinds of printers

Three kinds of printers are popular.

A dot-matrix printer looks like a typewriter but has no keyboard. Like a typewriter, it smashes an inked ribbon against the paper. Like a typewriter, it’s cheap: it typically costs about $150.

An inkjet printer looks like a dot-matrix printer; but instead of containing a ribbon, it contains tiny hoses that squirt ink at the paper. It prints more beautifully than a dot-matrix printer and costs more. It typically costs about $200.

A laser printer looks like a photocopier. Like a photocopier, it contains a rotating drum and inky toner. It prints even more beautifully than the other two kinds of printers. Like a photocopier, it’s expensive: it typically costs about $400.

Special requirements

As you progress from a dot-matrix printer to an inkjet printer to a laser printer, the quality tends to go up, and so does the price. But here are exceptions.…

Color If you need to print in color (instead of just black-and-white), get an inkjet printer. The typical inkjet printer can print in color beautifully. (Dot-matrix printers produce colors too crudely and slowly. Laser printers produce just black-and-white, except for ridiculously expensive laser printers that produce color and cost about $4,000.)

Mailing labels Although you can print mailing labels on all three kinds of printers, the easiest way to print mailing labels is on a dot-matrix printer.

Multi-part forms If you want to print on a multipart form (using carbon paper or carbonless NCR paper), you must buy a dot-matrix printer.

Old accounting software Some old accounting software requires that you buy a dot-matrix printer. It also requires that the printer be an expensive kind that can handle extra-wide paper.

Cost of consumables

After you’ve bought the printer and used it for a while, the ink supply will run out, so you must buy more ink.

Those prices assume you’re printing black text. If you’re printing graphics or color, the cost per page goes up drastically. For example, full-color graphics on an inkjet printer cost about 50 cents per page.

If you use your printer a lot, you’ll have to buy ink often: every few months. The cost adds up: after a few years, you’ll discover that the total cost of all the ink you’ve bought is more than the cost of the printer! If a printer is advertised at a low price, beware: the “almost free” printer is just a ruse to get you to spend lots of money on ink. (It’s like buying an “almost free” razor, which is just a ruse to get you to spend lots on blades.)

For all three kinds of printers, you must also pay for the paper, which costs about 1 cent per sheet if you buy a small quantity (such as a 500 sheets), or a half a cent per sheet if you buy a large quantity (such as 5000 sheets). For low prices on paper, go to Staples.

You must also pay for the electricity to run the printer; but the electricity’s cost is negligible (much less than a penny per page) if you turn the printer off when you’re not printing.

Daisy-wheel printers

Although the most popular kinds of printers are dot-matrix, inkjet, and laser, some folks still use an older kind of printer, called a daisy-wheel printer. It’s cute! Here’s how it works.…

Like a typewriter and a dot-matrix printer, a daisy-wheel printer smashes an inked ribbon against paper. To do that, the daisy-wheel printer contains a device called a daisy wheel, which is an artificial daisy flower made of plastic or metal. On each of the daisy’s petals is embossed a character: a letter, a digit, or a symbol. For example, one petal has the letter A embossed on it; another petal has B; another petal has C; etc.

Notice that each character is embossed. (The word “embossed” is like “engraved”, but an “embossed” character is raised up from the surface instead of etched into the surface.)

To print the letter C, the printer spins the daisy wheel until the C petal is in front of the inked ribbon. Then a hammer bangs the C petal against the ribbon, which in turn hits the paper, so that an inked C appears on the paper.

Different wheels You can remove the daisy wheel from the printer and insert a different daisy wheel instead. Each daisy wheel contains a different font. For example, one daisy wheel contains italics (which are slanted letters, like this); a different daisy wheel contains Greek symbols used by scientists.

The printer holds just one daisy wheel at a time. To switch to italics in the middle of your printing, you must stop the printer, switch daisy wheels (a tedious activity that requires your own manual labor!), then press a button for the printer to resume printing.

Manufacturers The most famous daisy-wheel printer manufacturer was Diablo, founded by Mr. Lee in California. He sold the company to Xerox, then founded a second daisy-wheel printer company, Qume (pronounced “kyoom”), which he sold to ITT. In 1988 he bought Qume back. Other companies (such as Brother and Juki) invented imitations that claimed to be Diablo & Qume compatible.

Variants of the daisy wheel Over the years, many variants of the daisy wheel were invented.

For example, Nippon Electric Company (NEC) invented a “wilted” daisy wheel, whose petals are bent. The wilted daisy wheel is called a thimble. Computerists like it because it spins faster than a traditional daisy and also produces a sharper image. It’s used just in NEC’s Spinwriter and Elf printers.

Another variation of the daisy wheel is the plastic golf ball, which has characters embossed all over it. IBM calls it a Selectric typing element. IBM uses it in typewriters, typesetting machines, and printers. It produces better-looking characters than daisy wheels or thimbles; but it spins too slowly and needs too many repairs, so IBM has discontinued it.

Some maxicomputers and minicomputers use gigantic printers that have characters embossed on bands, chains, and drums instead of daisies. Those printers are fast and cost many thousands of dollars.

Look closer

Now let’s take a closer look at each of the three popular kinds of printers: dot-matrix, inkjet, and laser.…

A dot-matrix printer resembles a daisy-wheel printer; but instead of containing a daisy wheel, it contains a few guns, as if it were a super-cowboy whose belt contains several holsters.

Each gun shoots a pin at the inked ribbon. When the pin’s tip hits the ribbon and smashes the ribbon against the paper, a dot of ink appears on the paper. Then the pin retracts back into the gun that fired it.

Since each gun has its own pin, the number of guns is the same as the number of pins.

9-pin printers

If the printer is of average quality, it has 9 guns — and therefore 9 pins. It’s called a 9-pin printer. The 9 guns are stacked on top of each other, in a column that’s called the print head. If all the guns fire simultaneously, the pins smash against the ribbon simultaneously, so the paper shows 9 dots in a vertical column. The dots are very close to each other, so that the column of dots looks like a single vertical line. If just some of the 9 pins press against the ribbon, you get fewer than 9 dots, so you see just part of a vertical line.

To print a character, the print head’s 9 guns print part of a vertical line; then the print head moves to the right and prints part of another vertical line, then moves to the right again and prints part of another vertical line, etc. Each character is made of parts of vertical lines — and each part is made of dots.

The pattern of dots that makes up a character is called the dot matrix. That’s why such a printer’s called a 9-pin dot-matrix printer.

Inside the printer is a ROM chip that holds the definition of each character. For example, the ROM’s definition of “M” says which pins to fire to produce the letter “M”. To use the ROM chip, the printer contains its own CPU chip and its own RAM.

When microcomputers first became popular, most dot-matrix printers for them were built by a New Hampshire company, Centronics. In 1980, Japanese companies took over the marketplace. Centronics went bankrupt. The two Japanese companies that dominate the industry now are Epson and Panasonic.

Epson Epson became popular because it was the first company to develop a disposable print head — so that when the print head wears out, you can throw it away and pop in a new one yourself, without needing a repairman. Also, Epson was the first company to develop a low-cost dot-matrix impact printer whose dots look “clean and crisp” instead of looking like "fuzzy blobs”. Epson was the main reason why Centronics went bankrupt.

Epson is part of a Japanese conglomerate called the Seiko Group, which became famous by timing the athletes in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. To time them accurately, the Seiko Group invented a quartz clock attached to an electronic printer. Later, the quartz clock was miniaturized and marketed to consumers as the “Seiko watch”, which became the best-selling watch in the whole world. The electronic printer, or “E.P.”, led to a better printer, called the “son of E.P.”, or “EP’s son”. That’s how the Epson division was founded and got its name!

Epson’s first 9-pin printer was the MX-80. Then came an improvement, called the FX-80. Those printers are obsolete; they’ve been replaced by Epson’s newest 9-pin wonders, the FX-880 (which costs $250) and the FX-1180 (which can handle extra-wide paper and costs $380). Epson’s cheapest and slowest 9-pin printer is the LX-300+ ($190). You can get those prices from discount dealers (such as Tri State).

Panasonic For a 9-pin printer, I recommend buying the Panasonic 1150 instead, because it prints more beautifully and costs just $149 from discount dealers such as Harmony. Too bad it can’t handle extra-wide paper!

Other Japanese Besides Epson and Panasonic, four other Japanese companies are also popular: NEC, Oki, Citizen, and Star.

Compatibility Printers from all six of those Japanese companies are intended mainly for the IBM PC, though they work with Apple 2 and Commodore computers also.

Apple The most popular printers for the Mac were the Imagewriter and the Imagewriter 2. They were designed by Apple to print exact copies of the Mac’s screen. They even print copies of the screen’s wild fonts and graphics. Apple stopped selling them.

7-pin printers

Although the average dot-matrix printer uses 9 pins, some older printers use just 7 pins instead of 9. Unfortunately, 7-pin printers can’t print letters that dip below the line (g, j, p, q, and y) and can’t underline. Some 7-pin printers print just capitals; other 7-pin printers “cheat” by raising the letters g, j, p, q, and y slightly.

24-pin printers

Although 9 pins are enough to print English, they’re not enough to print advanced Japanese, which requires 24 pins instead.

Manufacturers The first company to popularize 24-pin printers was Toshiba. Its printers printed Japanese — and English — beautifully. 24-pin Toshiba printers became popular in America, because they print English characters more beautifully than 9-pin printers.

Epson and all the other Japanese printer companies have copied Toshiba. Here are the cheapest wonderful 24-pin printers:

You can get those prices from Tri State and Harmony. While supplies last, Tri State has an even better deal: get a refurbished Epson LQ-570+ for just $160! Phone Tri State at 800-433-5199 or 212-633-2530.

The cheapest 24-pin printer that handles wide paper is the Epson LQ-2080 ($400).

24-pin printers print more beautifully than 9-pin printers but print slower, are less rugged, and don’t bang hard enough to print multiple copies on thick multi-part forms.

Pin arrangement In a typical, cheap 24-pin printer (such as the Epson Action Printer 3250), the even-numbered pins are slightly to the right of the odd-numbered pins, so you see two columns of pins. After firing the even-numbered pins, the print head moves to the right and fires the odd-numbered pins, whose dots on paper overlap the dots from the even-numbered pins. The overlap insures that the vertical column of up to 24 dots has no unwanted gaps.

In fancier 24-pin printers (such as the Panasonic 2130 & 2135), the 24 pins are arranged as a diamond instead of two columns, so that the sound of firing pins is staggered: when you print a vertical line you hear a quiet hum instead of two bangs.

Beyond 24 pins

The fastest dot-matrix printers use multiple print heads, so that they can print several characters simultaneously.

Why the daisies died

During the 1970’s, daisy-wheel printers were popular; but during the 1980’s, computerists switched to dot-matrix printers instead. Here’s why.…

The mechanism that spins the daisy is expensive, slow, and frequently needs repairs.

Dot-matrix printers can easily print graphics by making the pictures out of little dots. Daisy wheels cannot.

Although the first dot-matrix printers had just 7 pins and printed ugly characters, 24-pin printers can print prettier characters than the average daisy wheel. Moreover, you can make the typical 9-pin printer print will and imitate an 18-pin printer by doing 2-pass printing, in which the printer prints a line of text, jerks the paper up very slightly, and then prints the line again so the new dots fill the gaps between the old dots.

If you have a daisy-wheel printer and want to change to a different font (such as italics), you must spend your time manually switching daisy wheels. If you have a dot-matrix printer instead, just tell the printer which font you want (by pressing a button on the printer or on your computer’s keyboard), and the printer will automatically switch to different patterns of dots to produce the different font, since the printer’s ROM contains the definitions of many fonts. To make a daisy-wheel printer print so many fonts, you must buy dozens of daisy wheels, costing a total of several hundred dollars.

So daisy-wheel printers died because of competition from dot-matrix printers — and from inkjet and laser printers, which print even more beautifully! Let’s examine those super-beautiful printers now.…

 

An inkjet printer resembles a dot-matrix printer but contains hoses instead of guns. The hoses (called nozzles) squirt ink at the paper. There are no pins or ribbons.

When you use an inkjet printer, you hear the splash of ink squirting the paper. That splash is quieter than the bang produced when a dot-matrix printer’s pins smash a ribbon. If you like quiet, you’ll love inkjet printers!

Most inkjet printers can print in color. They mix together the three primary ink colors (red, blue, and yellow) to form all the colors of the rainbow.

3 main manufacturers

The first popular inkjet printers were made by Hewlett-Packard (HP). Later, Epson and Canon started making inkjet printers also.

The inkjet printers from all 3 of those companies are excellent. Each company makes a wide variety of inkjet printers, at prices ranging from about $100 to about $1000. Here are some general tendencies:

Each manufacturer has its own brand names:

How does the ink get out of the nozzle and onto the paper?

When using an inkjet printer, try different brands of paper.

3 new competitors

HP, Canon, and Epson are being attacked by three aggressive competitors (Xerox, Brother, and Lexmark), which sometimes offer better deals.

Discount dealers

You can buy from discount dealers: