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Explain

PRINTERS in

PRINTERS :Printer is a most common output device which produces hard copy of documents in an electric form and provides a permanent record of output. The following are the considerations which classify the printer :-

1. Speed :The number of pages of text (PPM ) , which a printer can print is very important .

2. Image Quality :The resolution of the printers refer to the dots of ink per inch that can be put into a square inch of paper . It is measured in DPI ( Dots Per Inch ).
3.

Cost of Operation :It includes maintenance

cost e.g. ink, toner etc.

Types of Printers :1.

Character Printers :- .

This printer prints one character at a time . Their speed is slow. They can print upto 100 500 characters per second .
2.

Line Printers :-

These are the printers that print one line at a time by keeping character codes of the particular line in the memory buffer .

3.

Page Printers :These printers can print one

page at a time .

CLASSIFICATION :There are two types of classes of printers which are classified on the basis of print quality , speed and their cost . These are :1.)

Impact Printers :-

Impact printers use typewriting approach of hammering a typeface on the paper and inked ribbon . There are futher two types of Impact Printers . They are :(a). Character Printers :These printer stores individual characters when needed to print . The printer will print one character at a time at a speed of 100 500 characters per second . These types of printers are rarely used because of low print quality , speed and printer maintainance cost . Example of Character Printer is Dot matrix printer .

Dot Matrix Printer :These are character printers and print one character at a time . these were first introduced by Centronics in 1970 and is a type of

printer that uses print heads to shoot ink or strike an ink ribbon to place hundreds to thousands of little dots to form text and / or images . It has a print head which moves horizontally ( left to right , right to left ) on the paper . The print head consists of an array of pins which can be activated independently on each other and striked on inked ribbon to produce pattern of dots on the paper . To print a character , printer activates the appropriate set of pins as the print head moves horizontally for faster printing . These printers are designed to print both when the print head moves right to left and left to right . These printers are very noisy as compared to other non impact printers . They are very slow in speed and print quality is not very good . That is why , these are the least preferred printers and are found in small businesses, hotels and small shops .

(b). Line Printers:A high speed printer capable of printing an entire line at one time. A fast line printer can print as many as 3,000 lines per minute . The disadvantages of these printers are that they cannot print graphics , the print quality is low , and they are very noisy These are line printers that print one at a time . It consists of a cylindrical drum and characters are embossed on its surface in the form of circular bands . Each band consists of all the printing characters supported by the printer in the character set and the total number of bands is equal to the maximum number of characters that can be printed on a line . A drum printer with 132 characters per line supports a character set of 96 characters which makes a total of 12,672 characters on its surface . The drum printer in which the drum rotates at a high speed and a character is printed by activating the appropriate hammer . When the character is embossed on the band at the print position passes below it . Drum printers can print a pre defined

Drum Printers :-

style which is embossed on that drum . Due to this reason , drum printers do not have the ability to print any shape of characters , different size of prints and graphics such as charts and graphs . Drum printers are expensive impact printers because they print by hammering the paper and inked ribbon against the characters embossed on the drum .

2.)

Non-Impact Printers :-

Non impact printers do not hit or impact a ribbon to print . They use electro-static chemicals and ink-jet technologies . The following are various types of non-impact printers:-

:These printers are character printers that form characters and all kinds of images by spraying small dots of ink on the paper . The print head off contains 64 tiny nozzles which can be heated in a few micro seconds by an integrated circuit register . When the register reads , the ink near it vaporizes and is ejected through the nozzle and makes a dot on the paper placed in the front of the print head . To print a character , the printer heats the appropriate set of nozzles as print head moves horizontal . Ink jet printers produce high quality prints as compared to dot matrix printers . A high resolution ink jet printer has 64 nozzles within the height of 7mm which provides a printer resolution of 360 D.P.I. Ink jet printers are non-impact printers because they print by spraying ink on the paper . They are quite in operation and can produce multiple copies in single printing .

(a). Ink Jet Printers

(b). Laser Printers :Laser printers are page printers that can print one page at a time . The main components of laser printer are laser beam source , multi sided mirror , a photo conductive drum and toner which consists of tiny particles of oppositely charged ink . To print a page , the laser beam is focused on electro statically charged drum by spinning the multi sided mirror . The mirror focuses the laser beam on the surface of the drum in a manner to create the pattern of characters / images to be printed on the page . As we know , the drum is photo conductive , a difference in electric charge is created on those parts of the drum surface which are exposed on the laser beam . The toner which consists of the oppositely charged ink particles sticks to the drum in the places where laser beam has put the charge on the drum . The toner is then permanently fused on the paper with heat and pressure to generate the printed output . The drum is rotated and cleaned with rubber blade to remove the extra toner from the surface . They produce high quality output because the available resolutions range from 300 D.P.I. at the low end to 1,200 D.P.I. at the high end . By comparison , offset printing usually prints at 1,200 or 2,400 D.P.I. Some laser printers achieve higher resolutions with special techniques known generally as resolution enhancement . These printers produce less expensive prints and are called non-impact printers because they do not have hammers striking on inked ribbon and on paper . They are quite in operation and can print 500 1,000 pages per hour