Talk:Daisy wheel printer

Accuracy

Claims that may be misleading or inaccurate

• "the introduction of high-quality laser printers and inkjet printers in the later 1980s" is chronologically misleading. High quality non-impact printers were available a decade earlier - e.g. IBM 6440 92cps inkjet system (released in June 1976) and IBM 6670 36ppm laser printer (released in February 1979). Price was the main issue.
• Statement that dot matrix printers were faster than daisywheels. In fact when printing in NLQ mode, dot matrix output was 10-20 cps until at least 1983.
• Demand for printing graphics is misleading without more accurately identifying the time period. In the late 1970s there wasn't much office software around that drew graphics anyway: processor, screen and printing technology had to evolve, and standards were needed like the IBM PC line-drawing character set and Digital Research GEM for vector graphics.
• Likewise the statement that dot matrix was "more popular" than daisywheel is incorrect in the office systems market, which was the predominant market until at least 1983.
• I'm doubtful about the suggestion that early daisy wheel printers were not servo-controlled so bold-face (reprinting at 1/120 inch offset) was not supported.

Further facts that could be mentioned

• Daisywheel was originally introduced in the late 1970s e.g. in the Xerox 800 editing typewriters that competed with IBM Selectric MT/MC.
• Daisywheel speed was 30-45(?) cps compared with Selectric 12-15cps. In January 1978 IBM introduced Daisywheel printers (OEM'ed from Qume) for Office System 6 (6/442 and 6/452 models) claiming 55cps speed. A new (IBM in-house?) printer design (included in the Displaywriter announcement in June 1980) claimed 60cps.
• Daisywheel and selectric impact printers had the option of "film ribbons" which offered crisper definition and greater contrast than matrix printers could deliver.
• The IBM 2741 entry states that it printed at 14.2 char/sec, which I believe is correct.

Of course, citations are needed for all the above, which is why I've left the article in its current rather inaccurate state for the time being. Much of the doubtful material dates from revision 118961812 by 216.138.194.68, last active on Wikipedia in May 2007, so I can't use Talk to get verification. I'll add references when I can - Pointillist (talk) 10:24, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The 10c/sec mention is misleading. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GioCM (talk • contribs) 23:04, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Thimble

Any interest in expanding the article to cover the NEC Spinwriter ([1])? Bongomatic (talk) 14:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see some expanssion. Soemthing I've always wondered - where thimbles invented to dodge a patent on daisywheels, or was it for a mechanical advantage of reduced rotational inertia (from their reduced diameter). Andy Dingley (talk) 13:03, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Bongomatic, thanks for finding the necam.com material. I did check nec.com, nec.jp and necdisplay.com, google images etc without success. Can you find anything independent? Anything published by the vendor is a bit suspect in Wikipedia, for obvious reasons. I've actually held a thimble in my hand but I've no idea where I would go now to find an image of one, or an output sample. NEC was early to market with 24-pin dot matrix output which helped kill off the Spinwriter, as I recall. - Pointillist (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Andy Dingley, I suspect the answer was "both the above". NEC was a pioneer in "clean room" Reverse engineering, saying to engineers "it has to do this, but better". The V-series 808x-alikes are a good example. - Pointillist (talk) 23:56, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi Pointillist, for non-controversial information, like specifications, actually primary sources are fine under WP:V, and the citation is only intended to demonstrate the existence of the thimble configuration in the first place (I was unable to find a drawing, but if you drill down under Spinwriter there are tons of old manuals, etc).

For the comparison between daisy wheel and thimble, that looks all very subjective to me in the first place—I would be surprised if someone put a UL study looking at the printing speed at which daisy wheels versus thimbles exploded.

Regards, Bongomatic 00:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback. Well, I would prefer a third party image if I can find one or take one (I must have had hundreds of opportunities to photograph Spinwriters in the past). No, I never heard of a UL report on daisywheels "going critical", either, so I'll pull that comparison from the article. - Pointillist (talk) 00:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

"Graphics" section: Brother Twinriter 5 and 6 models worth mentioning?

Brother Industries manufactured the Twinriter 5 (1985) and 6 (1987) printers which tried to overcome the limitation of the missing graphics capabilities of daisy wheel printers by adding a dot matrix print head to the existing daisy wheel print head, with the former being used for letter quality printing and the latter for drafts and for printing symbols which were not present in the daisy wheel character set. Here are a few of the more relevant links I've found about these printers:

[2] (Twinriter 5)
[3] (Twinriter 6, with picture further down the page)
[4] (Twinriter 6)

These printers are worth mentioning in this section in my opinion. What do you think? Rberra (talk) 16:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

If you've got sourceable content, then by all means go for it. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)