Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: R: Un aiuto per favore

 che sono tutte stampanti ad impatto.
I'm intrigued. What is a 'chain' printer? It's hard to imagine how it
works.
Or for that matter a 'drum' or 'daisywheel'. I've seen daisy wheel
things for hand punching little plastic tapes.  Unless of course the
drum is like the IBM golf-ball which is a spherical shaped type head
with all the
characters on it but with only one point of contact with a page - being
a sphere and all. :-)
cheers,
Loki

 - being a sphere and all. :-)
Yes, the drum was almost like the golf-ball, only it was cylindric instead
of golfball-like.
(the capstan was cyilidric too, but placed horizontally, thus there was only
a point
of contact at a time, between the two).
--
Er Roscio.

works.
it's a band printer.
It has a metal band that runs continuously in front of an array of
hammers.
The band carries letters and simbols and when it is hit by an hammer the
corrisponding symbol hits an ink ribbon and then the paper.
The letters on the band are disposed in such a way that it is possible
to print more letters at once, or with a minumum shift of the band
itself.
These printers can be *very* fast.
At least they were fast. The last one I saw was a Decision Data printer
and was able to print a couple of pages per second (some ten yrs ago).
It was as big as a washing machine.
And ten times as noisy.
As for the 'margherita', yes, that's how we called the IBM proprinter
with the sphere. I don't know if that was an abuse of terminolgy,
though.
cheers,
Peltio

 though.
No, the "daisy wheel" (margherita) is not the "sphere"...
The "sphere" printer is that used in the SHADO - UFO telefilms,
do you remember ?...
--
Er Roscio.

>I've seen daisy wheel things for hand punching little plastic tapes.
Il meccanismo era esattamente identico. Solo, la "margherita" aveva piu`
complessa, con "petali" di diversa lunghezza, per portare piu` caratteri.
Tutto al passato, perche' credo che ormai non le producano piu`.
Le stampanti "a sfera" erano stampanti "a sfera".
Ciao.

 Or for that matter a 'drum' or 'daisywheel'.
You've already got them
All of them are just in our old-edp guys' skull! :(

 All of them are just in our old-edp guys' skull! :(
Non posso rispondere in italian, allora dal mio cervello:
In the early days, printers weren't attached directly to computers. 
They were separate and operated by having a card reader that transmitted
the holes in the cards to print bars with all the letters and numbers.
the bars rose in unison to the appropriate level opposite the strike
hammers, and when they were all level the hammers struck printing a
whole line.  30 lpm (lines per minute) for the IBM 402.  Then because
the hammer bars had more distance to cover IBM introduced the 407 which
operated on a similar principal but from rotating cylinders.  This, if
the memory serves, got up to 100 lpm'chain' printer?  is like a band
printer but not quite. 
The first printer I saw attached was to an IBM 701 and it was similar in
principal to the dot-matrix printers but much faster and bigger - the
size of a small British Motors America auto.  IBM also attached
typewriters (with hammers) to some of its machines.  These were pretty
soon replaced by the ball typewriters.  The hammer typewriters (the old
standards) were dangerous due to metal fatigue.  I remember a hammer
breaking and flying across the room like a dart.
In 1960 IBM introduced a computer called the 1401 designed for
commercial use and printing.  It had a chain printer.  The chain almost
looked like a motor chain but was cleverly engineered and the interior
containing electronics encased in a stainless covering.  It was mounted
on its side facing a large ribbon the width of the printed page.  You
could get 132 char per line at 10/in.  Special versions were made with
smaller links to give up to over 200 char per line.  Chains had multiple
sets of characters.  The sets could be full character or limited
character sets.  A numeric only chain would go at very high speed while
the full character sets were slower.  
The hammers were behind the paper which was between the ribbon and the
rotating chain.  The computer presented the whole line to be printed to
the printer memory which was in synch with the characters on the chain. 
When a line character matched the rotating chain character the hammer
fired pushing the paper into the ribbon into the chain character.  The
faster the chain and the more sets of characters the faster the printing
up to 3000 lpm.  This was the standard of the industry till lasers took
its place in the early eighties.
The ball printer had its father in the old teletype machine with its
rotating giggling print unit.
Daisey wheels looked like daisies. At the tip of each petal there was a
type character. They followed the principle of the ball printer. These
were not for punching tapes.  They were usually used for high quality
carbon ribbon typing.  I used one of these attached to my DEC 1134 and
later IBM PC for my company's advertizing, reports, and proposals.  It
went out when we began using the laser attached to a Mac for these functions.

You're right !... In italian they are (were...) called "stampanti a catena".
Roscio, Heavens above, do you *really* have to quote Peltio's 25 lines
before stating he's right?
-- 
Isa
Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
And dance like no one's watching
http://web.tiscalinet.it/alfabeto_auschwitz/

 Tutto al passato, perche' credo che ormai non le producano piu`.
Le macchine per scrivere elettroniche hanno la margherita.
Si fanno ancora sia le macchine che le margherite.
Per l'euro si sono fatte le margherite nuove.
-- 
____________________________________
Giancarlo Pillan  -  Ivrea  -  Italy
____________________________________

 rotating giggling print unit.
A very happy print head no doubt!
Loki

Grazie a tutti (Roscio Peltio Martin ecc.)che mi hanno explained the
various impact printers there were (are). Can we look forward to quantum
printers that may or may not be there?
Cheers,
Loki

Si fanno ancora sia le macchine che le margherite.
Come non detto, allora. E` che io continuo a vederle accuratamente riposte
su qualche scaffale e mai piu` utilizzate. Tra l'altro, non so ora, ma
all'epoca erano piuttosto costose: mi ricordo prezzi sull'ordine dei 3
milioni per una macchina da scrivere elettronica. Non c'e` certo
convenienza rispetto ad un sistema completo computer+stampante; e non si
puo` neppur dire che fossero piu` "portatili".
Evidentemente hanno invece nonostante tutto ancora un loro mercato.
Ciao.

 Le macchine per scrivere elettroniche hanno la margherita.
  E' vero. Ne ho una in Venezuela, acquistata 12 anni fa; tre anni fa,
quando ancora il computer suscitava in me il "timor panico", dovetti
cambiare la "margherita" che non ebbi difficoltà a reperire.
-- 
Ciao
    Mariuccia®

 Evidentemente hanno invece nonostante tutto ancora un loro mercato.
Ovviamente hanno mercato quelle portatili, non certe quelle
superprofessionali da segretaria che oggi non si usano piů.
Quelle elettroniche portatili sono decisamente piů economiche, 
compatte, veloci e pratiche di un computer.


 through the machine, each play a recognizable tune.
You're wrong. Line printers were a class of printers that INCLUDED
chain printers, but non only them. Even bar printers, wheel printers,
and so on, were "line" printers.
Bar printers had a vertical bar of characters on each print position.
Wheel printers had a wheel of characters on each print position.
--
Er Roscio.