What is Printer ?
Printers are one of the widely used peripherals on computer machines and they are commonly used to print images, text, and diagrams. Printer is an external hardware outlaying device which is responsible for taking data from computer and generating a hard copy of that data.
The speed of printers can be measured in characters per second (CPS) or pages per minute (PPM), The higher costly printers are used to printer high resolution prints. and they works faster as compare to cheaper one.
Types of Printers
1. Impact Printers -
- Daisy-wheel printers
- Dot-matrix printers
- Line printers
2. Non-Impact Printers -
- Inkjet printers
- Thermal printers
- Laser printers
1. Impact Printers
Daisy-Wheel Printer - A daisy-wheel printer is an impact printer that uses a wheel as a print head. When wheel rotates, a hammer strikes on backside of the spoke and presses it against the paper to print a character.
Dot-Matrix Printer - A dot-matrix printer forms graphics and characters on the paper by producing patterns of dots. These printers are very slow in nature with the speeds usually ranging between 30 to 600 (CPS) characters per second. Dot-matrix printers are generally make noise. And these printers are relatively cheaper because of the paper that they use.
Line Printer - A line printer is an impact printer which requires a continuous feed of paper and prints one line of subject at a time. Even though they have been replaced by high-speed laser printers, But these are still used in some areas as they are cost friendly and having the ability to print on multi-part forms. A line printer is also called as a Bar Printer.
2. Non-Impact Printers
Inkjet Printers - This is a non-impact printer that configure graphics and characters by spraying minute drops of liquid color onto a paper. Inkjet Printers are quite easy to operate and can produce good quality printouts of both text and graphics. Mostly they produces a high quality color output.
Thermal Printers - Thermal printers are non- impact printers that operate by driving heated pins against special heat-sensitive paper to “embed” the image or text onto the paper.
Because of it's high quality speed, This printer and printing technology is mostly used in banking, airline, entertainment, retail, grocery, shops, and healthcare industries. Thermal printing does not make use of ink unlike many other printing forms. But they are mostly depends on thermal papers for producing the images and text. They are also quite popular in speed of printing.
Laser Printers - The printing process of a laser printer works similar to a photocopy printer. The Laser printers are also known as page printers because they process and store the entire page sheet before they actually print it.
Laser printers can print text or image at speed of four to thirty pages per minute. The cost per page of cartridges is lower than other printers. And also they are faster too.
Also check out this : What is monitor ? | And it's type - Learn With AVRK
