Printers
Content
PRINTERS
The history of printing goes back to the duplication of images by means of stamps in very
early times. The use of round seals for rolling an impression into clay tablets goes back to
early Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BCE, where they are the most common works of
art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the use of
small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In China, India and Europe, the
printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus. The process is essentially
the same - in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until
the seventeenth century. The development of printing has made it possible for books,
newspapers, magazines, and other reading materials to be produced in great numbers, and it
plays an important role in promoting literacy among the masses.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing)
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which makes a persistent human readable
representation of graphics or text on paper or similar physical media. The two most common
printer mechanisms are black and white laser printers used for common documents, and color
inkjet printers which can produce high quality photograph quality output.
The world's first computer printer was a 19th-century mechanically driven apparatus invented
by Charles Babbage for his difference engine. This system used a series of metal rods with
characters printed on them and stuck a roll of paper against the rods to print the characters.
The first commercial printers generally used mechanisms from electric typewriters and
Teletype machines, which operated in a similar fashion. The demand for higher speed led to
the development of new systems specifically for computer use. Among the systems widely
used through the 1980s were daisy wheel systems similar to typewriters, line printers that
produced similar output but at much higher speed, and dot matrix systems that could mix text
and graphics but produced relatively low-quality output. The plotter was used for those
requiring high quality line art like blueprints.
The introduction of the low-cost laser printer in 1984 with the first HP LaserJet, and the
addition of PostScript in next year's Apple LaserWriter, set off a revolution in printing known
as desktop publishing. Laser printers using PostScript mixed text and graphics, like dot-matrix
printers, but at quality levels formerly available only from commercial typesetting systems.
By 1990, most simple printing tasks like fliers and brochures were now created on personal
computers and then laser printed; expensive offset printing systems were being dumped as
scrap. The HP Deskjet of 1988 offered the same advantages as laser printer in terms of
flexibility, but produced somewhat lower quality output (depending on the paper) from much
less expensive mechanisms. Inkjet systems rapidly displaced dot matrix and daisy wheel
printers from the market. By the 2000s high-quality printers of this sort had fallen under the
$100 price point and became commonplace.
The rapid update of internet email through the 1990s and into the 2000s has largely displaced
the need for printing as a means of moving documents, and a wide variety of reliable storage
systems means that a "physical backup" is of little benefit today. Even the desire for printed
output for "offline reading" while on mass transit or aircraft has been displaced by e-book
readers and tablet computers. Today, traditional printers are being used more for special
purposes, like printing photographs or artwork, and are no longer a must-have peripheral.
Starting around 2010, 3D printing became an area of intense interest, allowing the creation of
physical objects with the same sort of effort as an early laser printer required to produce a
brochure. These devices are in their earliest stages of development and have not yet become
commonplace.
Types of printers
Personal printers are primarily designed to support individual users, and may be connected to
only a single computer. These printers are designed for low-volume, short-turnaround print
jobs, requiring minimal setup time to produce a hard copy of a given document. However,
they are generally slow devices ranging from 6 to around 25 pages per minute (ppm), and the
cost per page is relatively high. However, this is offset by the on-demand convenience. Some
printers can print documents stored on memory cards or from digital cameras and scanners.
Networked or shared printers are "designed for high-volume, high-speed printing." They are
usually shared by many users on a network and can print at speeds of 45 to around 100 ppm.
The Xerox 9700 could achieve 120 ppm.
A virtual printer is a piece of computer software whose user interface and API resembles that
of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer.
A 3D printer is a device for making a three-dimensional object from a 3D model or other
electronic data source through additive processes in which successive layers of material
( including plastics, metals, food, cement, wood, and other materials) are laid down under
computer control. It is called a printer by analogy with an inkjet printer which produces a twodimensional document by a similar process of depositing a layer of ink on paper.
Technology
The choice of print technology has a great effect on the cost of the printer and cost of
operation, speed, quality and permanence of documents, and noise. Some printer technologies
don't work with certain types of physical media, such as carbon paper or transparencies.
A second aspect of printer technology that is often forgotten is resistance to alteration: liquid
ink, such as from an inkjet head or fabric ribbon, becomes absorbed by the paper fibers, so
documents printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with
toner or solid inks, which do not penetrate below the paper surface.
Modern print technology
The following printing technologies are routinely found in modern printers: toner-based
printer (laser printer, LED printer), liquid inkjet printers ,solid ink printers, dye-sublimation
printers, inkless printers, obsolete and special-purpose printing technologies, impact printers,
typewriter-derived printers, teletypewriter-derived printers, daisy wheel printers, dot-matrix
printers, ballistic wire printers, stored energy printers, line printers,liquid ink electrostatic
printers, plotters and other printers (digital minilab, electrolytic printers, spark printer,
barcode printer multiple technologies, billboard / sign paint spray printers, laser etching
industrial printers, microsphere, attributes, printer control languages)
Today, most printers accept one or more page description languages (PDLs). Laser printers
with greater processing power frequently offer support for variants of Hewlett-Packard's
Printer Command Language (PCL), PostScript or XML Paper Specification. Most inkjet
devices support manufacturer proprietary PDLs such as ESC/P. The diversity in mobile
platforms have led to various standardization efforts around device PDLs such as the Printer
Working Group (PWG's) PWG Raster.
Printing speed
The speed of early printers was measured in units of characters per minute (cpm) for character
printers, or lines per minute (lpm) for line printers. Modern printers are measured in pages per
minute (ppm). These measures are used primarily as a marketing tool, and are not as well
standardised as toner yields. Usually pages per minute refers to sparse monochrome office
documents, rather than dense pictures which usually print much more slowly, especially
colour images. PPM are most of the time referring to A4 paper in Europe and letter paper in
the United States, resulting in a 5-10% difference.
Sales
Since 2005, the world's top selling brand of inkjet and laser printers has been HP, which now
has 46% of sales in inkjet and 55.5% in laser printers.
Printing mode
The data received by a printer may be: A string of characters, A bitmapped image, A vector
image, A computer program written in a page description language (such as PCL or
PostScript). Some printers can process all four types of data, others not.Today it is possible to
print everything (even plain text) by sending ready bitmapped images to the printer. This
allows better control over formatting, especially among machines from different vendors.
Many printer drivers do not use the text mode at all, even if the printer is capable of it.
Monochrome, colour and photo printers
A monochrome printer can only produce an image consisting of one colour, usually black. A
monochrome printer may also be able to produce various tones of that color, such as a greyscale. A colour printer can produce images of multiple colours. A photo printer is a colour
printer that can produce images that mimic the colour range (gamut) and resolution of prints
made from photographic film. Many can be used on a standalone basis without a computer,
using a memory card or USB connector.
Page yield
The page yield is number of pages that can be printed from a toner cartridge or ink cartridge
—before the cartridge needs to be refilled or replaced. The actual number of pages yielded by
a specific cartridge depends on a number of factors.
Cost per page
In order to fairly compare operating expenses of printers with a relatively small ink cartridge
to printers with a larger, more expensive toner cartridge that typically holds more toner and so
prints more pages before the cartridge needs to be replaced, many people prefer to estimate
operating expenses in terms of cost per page (CPP).
Business model
Often the "razor and blades" business model is applied. That is, a company may sell a printer
at cost, and make profits on the ink cartridge, paper, or some other replacement part. This has
caused legal disputes regarding the right of companies other than the printer manufacturer to
sell compatible ink cartridges. To protect their business model, several manufacturers invest
heavily in developing new cartridge technology and patenting it.
Wireless printers
More than half of all printers sold at U.S. retail in 2010 were wireless-capable, but nearly
three-quarters of consumers who have access to those printers weren't taking advantage of the
increased access to print from multiple devices according to the new Wireless Printing Study.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_(computing)#Modern_print_technology)
Innovation: 3D printing
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is any of various processes used to
synthesize a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, successive layers of material are laid
down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are
produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial
robot.
3D printing in the term's original sense refers to processes that sequentially deposit material
onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads. More recently, the meaning of the term has
expanded to encompass a wider variety of techniques such as extrusion and sintering-based
processes. Technical standards generally use the term additive manufacturing for this broader
sense.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing )
How does 3D printing work?
It all starts with making a virtual design of the object you want to create. This virtual design is
made in a CAD (Computer Aided Design) file using a 3D modeling program (for the creation
of a totally new object) or with the use of a 3D scanner (to copy an existing object). A 3D
scanner makes a 3D digital copy of an object.
3d scanners use different technologies to generate a 3d model such as time-of-flight,
structured / modulated light, volumetric scanning and many more.
Recently, many IT companies like Microsoft and Google enabled their hardware to perform
3d scanning, a great example is Microsoft’s Kinect. This is a clear sign that future hand-held
devices like smartphones will have integrated 3d scanners. Digitizing real objects into 3d
models will become as easy as taking a picture. Prices of 3d scanners range from very
expensive professional industrial devices to 30 USD DIY devices anyone can make at home.
(http://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/)
The history of printing goes back to the duplication of images by means of stamps in very
early times. The use of round seals for rolling an impression into clay tablets goes back to
early Mesopotamian civilization before 3000 BCE, where they are the most common works of
art to survive, and feature complex and beautiful images. In both China and Egypt, the use of
small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks. In China, India and Europe, the
printing of cloth certainly preceded the printing of paper or papyrus. The process is essentially
the same - in Europe special presentation impressions of prints were often printed on silk until
the seventeenth century. The development of printing has made it possible for books,
newspapers, magazines, and other reading materials to be produced in great numbers, and it
plays an important role in promoting literacy among the masses.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing)
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which makes a persistent human readable
representation of graphics or text on paper or similar physical media. The two most common
printer mechanisms are black and white laser printers used for common documents, and color
inkjet printers which can produce high quality photograph quality output.
The world's first computer printer was a 19th-century mechanically driven apparatus invented
by Charles Babbage for his difference engine. This system used a series of metal rods with
characters printed on them and stuck a roll of paper against the rods to print the characters.
The first commercial printers generally used mechanisms from electric typewriters and
Teletype machines, which operated in a similar fashion. The demand for higher speed led to
the development of new systems specifically for computer use. Among the systems widely
used through the 1980s were daisy wheel systems similar to typewriters, line printers that
produced similar output but at much higher speed, and dot matrix systems that could mix text
and graphics but produced relatively low-quality output. The plotter was used for those
requiring high quality line art like blueprints.
The introduction of the low-cost laser printer in 1984 with the first HP LaserJet, and the
addition of PostScript in next year's Apple LaserWriter, set off a revolution in printing known
as desktop publishing. Laser printers using PostScript mixed text and graphics, like dot-matrix
printers, but at quality levels formerly available only from commercial typesetting systems.
By 1990, most simple printing tasks like fliers and brochures were now created on personal
computers and then laser printed; expensive offset printing systems were being dumped as
scrap. The HP Deskjet of 1988 offered the same advantages as laser printer in terms of
flexibility, but produced somewhat lower quality output (depending on the paper) from much
less expensive mechanisms. Inkjet systems rapidly displaced dot matrix and daisy wheel
printers from the market. By the 2000s high-quality printers of this sort had fallen under the
$100 price point and became commonplace.
The rapid update of internet email through the 1990s and into the 2000s has largely displaced
the need for printing as a means of moving documents, and a wide variety of reliable storage
systems means that a "physical backup" is of little benefit today. Even the desire for printed
output for "offline reading" while on mass transit or aircraft has been displaced by e-book
readers and tablet computers. Today, traditional printers are being used more for special
purposes, like printing photographs or artwork, and are no longer a must-have peripheral.
Starting around 2010, 3D printing became an area of intense interest, allowing the creation of
physical objects with the same sort of effort as an early laser printer required to produce a
brochure. These devices are in their earliest stages of development and have not yet become
commonplace.
Types of printers
Personal printers are primarily designed to support individual users, and may be connected to
only a single computer. These printers are designed for low-volume, short-turnaround print
jobs, requiring minimal setup time to produce a hard copy of a given document. However,
they are generally slow devices ranging from 6 to around 25 pages per minute (ppm), and the
cost per page is relatively high. However, this is offset by the on-demand convenience. Some
printers can print documents stored on memory cards or from digital cameras and scanners.
Networked or shared printers are "designed for high-volume, high-speed printing." They are
usually shared by many users on a network and can print at speeds of 45 to around 100 ppm.
The Xerox 9700 could achieve 120 ppm.
A virtual printer is a piece of computer software whose user interface and API resembles that
of a printer driver, but which is not connected with a physical computer printer.
A 3D printer is a device for making a three-dimensional object from a 3D model or other
electronic data source through additive processes in which successive layers of material
( including plastics, metals, food, cement, wood, and other materials) are laid down under
computer control. It is called a printer by analogy with an inkjet printer which produces a twodimensional document by a similar process of depositing a layer of ink on paper.
Technology
The choice of print technology has a great effect on the cost of the printer and cost of
operation, speed, quality and permanence of documents, and noise. Some printer technologies
don't work with certain types of physical media, such as carbon paper or transparencies.
A second aspect of printer technology that is often forgotten is resistance to alteration: liquid
ink, such as from an inkjet head or fabric ribbon, becomes absorbed by the paper fibers, so
documents printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with
toner or solid inks, which do not penetrate below the paper surface.
Modern print technology
The following printing technologies are routinely found in modern printers: toner-based
printer (laser printer, LED printer), liquid inkjet printers ,solid ink printers, dye-sublimation
printers, inkless printers, obsolete and special-purpose printing technologies, impact printers,
typewriter-derived printers, teletypewriter-derived printers, daisy wheel printers, dot-matrix
printers, ballistic wire printers, stored energy printers, line printers,liquid ink electrostatic
printers, plotters and other printers (digital minilab, electrolytic printers, spark printer,
barcode printer multiple technologies, billboard / sign paint spray printers, laser etching
industrial printers, microsphere, attributes, printer control languages)
Today, most printers accept one or more page description languages (PDLs). Laser printers
with greater processing power frequently offer support for variants of Hewlett-Packard's
Printer Command Language (PCL), PostScript or XML Paper Specification. Most inkjet
devices support manufacturer proprietary PDLs such as ESC/P. The diversity in mobile
platforms have led to various standardization efforts around device PDLs such as the Printer
Working Group (PWG's) PWG Raster.
Printing speed
The speed of early printers was measured in units of characters per minute (cpm) for character
printers, or lines per minute (lpm) for line printers. Modern printers are measured in pages per
minute (ppm). These measures are used primarily as a marketing tool, and are not as well
standardised as toner yields. Usually pages per minute refers to sparse monochrome office
documents, rather than dense pictures which usually print much more slowly, especially
colour images. PPM are most of the time referring to A4 paper in Europe and letter paper in
the United States, resulting in a 5-10% difference.
Sales
Since 2005, the world's top selling brand of inkjet and laser printers has been HP, which now
has 46% of sales in inkjet and 55.5% in laser printers.
Printing mode
The data received by a printer may be: A string of characters, A bitmapped image, A vector
image, A computer program written in a page description language (such as PCL or
PostScript). Some printers can process all four types of data, others not.Today it is possible to
print everything (even plain text) by sending ready bitmapped images to the printer. This
allows better control over formatting, especially among machines from different vendors.
Many printer drivers do not use the text mode at all, even if the printer is capable of it.
Monochrome, colour and photo printers
A monochrome printer can only produce an image consisting of one colour, usually black. A
monochrome printer may also be able to produce various tones of that color, such as a greyscale. A colour printer can produce images of multiple colours. A photo printer is a colour
printer that can produce images that mimic the colour range (gamut) and resolution of prints
made from photographic film. Many can be used on a standalone basis without a computer,
using a memory card or USB connector.
Page yield
The page yield is number of pages that can be printed from a toner cartridge or ink cartridge
—before the cartridge needs to be refilled or replaced. The actual number of pages yielded by
a specific cartridge depends on a number of factors.
Cost per page
In order to fairly compare operating expenses of printers with a relatively small ink cartridge
to printers with a larger, more expensive toner cartridge that typically holds more toner and so
prints more pages before the cartridge needs to be replaced, many people prefer to estimate
operating expenses in terms of cost per page (CPP).
Business model
Often the "razor and blades" business model is applied. That is, a company may sell a printer
at cost, and make profits on the ink cartridge, paper, or some other replacement part. This has
caused legal disputes regarding the right of companies other than the printer manufacturer to
sell compatible ink cartridges. To protect their business model, several manufacturers invest
heavily in developing new cartridge technology and patenting it.
Wireless printers
More than half of all printers sold at U.S. retail in 2010 were wireless-capable, but nearly
three-quarters of consumers who have access to those printers weren't taking advantage of the
increased access to print from multiple devices according to the new Wireless Printing Study.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_(computing)#Modern_print_technology)
Innovation: 3D printing
3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is any of various processes used to
synthesize a three-dimensional object. In 3D printing, successive layers of material are laid
down under computer control. These objects can be of almost any shape or geometry, and are
produced from a 3D model or other electronic data source. A 3D printer is a type of industrial
robot.
3D printing in the term's original sense refers to processes that sequentially deposit material
onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads. More recently, the meaning of the term has
expanded to encompass a wider variety of techniques such as extrusion and sintering-based
processes. Technical standards generally use the term additive manufacturing for this broader
sense.
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing )
How does 3D printing work?
It all starts with making a virtual design of the object you want to create. This virtual design is
made in a CAD (Computer Aided Design) file using a 3D modeling program (for the creation
of a totally new object) or with the use of a 3D scanner (to copy an existing object). A 3D
scanner makes a 3D digital copy of an object.
3d scanners use different technologies to generate a 3d model such as time-of-flight,
structured / modulated light, volumetric scanning and many more.
Recently, many IT companies like Microsoft and Google enabled their hardware to perform
3d scanning, a great example is Microsoft’s Kinect. This is a clear sign that future hand-held
devices like smartphones will have integrated 3d scanners. Digitizing real objects into 3d
models will become as easy as taking a picture. Prices of 3d scanners range from very
expensive professional industrial devices to 30 USD DIY devices anyone can make at home.
(http://3dprinting.com/what-is-3d-printing/)
