The impact printer was a mainstay of the early desktop computing era. Also called “dot matrix printers,” these printers could print low-resolution yet very readable text on a page, and do so quickly and at a low price point. But these printers are a relic of the past; in 2024, you might find them printing invoices or shipping labels, although more frequently these use cases have been replaced by other types of printers such as thermal printers and laser printers.
[…]The heart of the impact printer is the print head. The print head contained a column of pins (9 pins was common) that moved across the page. Software in the printer controlled when to strike these pins through an inked ribbon to place a series of “dots” on a page. By carefully timing the pin strikes with the movement of the print head, the printer could control where each dot was placed. A column of dots might represent the vertical stroke of the letter
↫ Jim Hall at Technically We WriteH, a series of single dots created the horizontal bar, and another column would create the final vertical stroke.
Our first printer was a dot matrix model, from I think a brand called Star or something similar. Back then, in 1991 or so, a lot of employers in The Netherlands offered programs wherein employees could buy computers through their work, offered at a certain discount. My parents jumped on the opportunity when my mom’s employer offered such a program, and through it, we bought a brand new 286 machine running MS-DOS and Windows 3.0, and it included said dot matrix printer.
There’s something about the sound and workings of a dot matrix printer that just can’t be bested by modern ink, laser, or LED printers. The mechanical punching, at such a fast rate it sounded like a tiny Gatling gun, was mesmerising, especially when paired with continuous form paper. Carefully ripping off the perforated edges of the paper after printing was just a nice bonus that entertained me quite a bit as a child.
I was surprised to learn that dot matrix printers are still being manufactured and sold today, and even comes in colour. They’re quite a bit more expensive than other printer types these days, but I have a feeling they’re aimed at enterprises and certain niches, which probably means they’re going to be of considerably higher quality than all the other junk printers that clog the market. With a bit more research, it might actually be possible to find a brand new colour dot matrix printer that is a better choice than some of the modern alternatives.
The fact that I’m not contemplating buying a brand new dot matrix printer in 2024, even though I rarely print, is a mildly worrying development.
My first experiment with refilling ink. Was with one of these printers. I put ink in the front and the back of the tape instead of buying a new cartridge.
Dot matrix has the unique advantage of being able to generate carbon copies.
That is why receipts and similar official documents still use dot matrix, where you can just print 3 copies together, and then sign them with at the same time.
Don’t daisywheel printers do that too ?
No Sir. My first Printer was a Radioshack (Tandy) DWP series printer. The printhead had letters, Numbers, and synbols Both CAPS and lowercase, all compiled together in the form of dimple flower petals “Daisy”, sort of like a typewriter. Fonts were only one size, Thats where DOt Matrix excelled, as Dot matrix printers were more versatile.
Yes, and they still survived to this day, unlike the wheel ones.
Btw, they are quite expensive now:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/375482575866
(“Oki MICROLINE 320 D2280A” in case the item gets deleted)
Citizen gsx 190 was my first printer, it had a black ribbon and with an addition I could print with a wider ribbon in 4 colors. Using wordperfect 6.0, high quality prints were obtained even though they were very slow.
Also using Banner and continuous paper you could make long posters for birthday parties.
We had Print Shop Pro with an Okidata printer to do the banners at home.
It was Star Micronics, I work for them now and we even still have a dot-matrix model, although mostly direct thermal now and receipt/label/ticket printers not desktop. Inkjet killed off dot-matrix in the home and (for the most part) office pretty effectively.
I still have a couple of dot matrix printers, A STAR LC200 is the better one of them, It should still work and I have a box of tractor feed paper somewhere. I used to print program listings out to debug them with a pencil… lol
I will have to fire it up next time I have my Amiga out.
Had an FX-80 in college (had a daisy wheel before that). But of course, by default and not without some additional cost, you couldn’t get (crappy) letter quality from the printer. However, the “knowledge” (pre-conumer Internet mind you) for how to “program” the printer was available. So, off I went to create my own personal letter quality font (totally unique). Of course, when I turned in my first paper, the prof said, “what font is this?”… and “never use this again” 🙂
I had the classic Epson FX-80 dot matrix printer hooked up to a BBC Micro and got it to do (greyscale) screenshots. Combine that with code to do giant coloured text at any rotated angle and I could print out warning notices to stick on my bedroom door 🙂 Nowadays, I’ve given up printing because so much of my life is digital-only now – I can’t remember the last time I posted a letter (or wrote a cheque for that matter).
IIRC my first color printer was a Citizen GSX140. It had a 4-color ribbon and a 24-pin head. Was fairly nice for the time. I ended up donating it to work because they needed a dot-matrix printer for multi-part track fed paper. At that time I had a decent laser printer and had no need for track-fed.