Daisy wheel printing

Impact printing technology / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor[1] at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to premium typewriters such as the IBM Selectric, but two to three times faster. Daisy wheel printing was used in electronic typewriters, word processors and computers from 1972. The daisy wheel is so named because of its resemblance to the daisy flower.[2]

Xerox_Roman_PS_Daisywheel_-_mono.jpg
Metal Daisy Wheel for Xerox & Diablo printers
DaisyWheel.jpg
Plastic Daisy Wheel for Qume printers
Daisy_wheel_output_samples_1980-81.jpg
Samples of daisy wheel printer output. Actual print is much crisper than these images
Royal_lettermaster_printing.jpg
The Royal LetterMaster, a budget daisy-wheel printer from the 1980s

By 1980 daisy wheel printers had become the dominant technology for high-quality text printing. Dot-matrix impact, thermal, or line printers were used where higher speed or image printing were required and poor print quality was acceptable. Both technologies were rapidly superseded for most purposes when dot-based printersin particular laser printersthat could print any characters or graphics, rather than being restricted to a limited character set, became able to produce output of comparable quality. Daisy wheel technology is now found only in some electronic typewriters.