Dot Matrix
Ballistic Wire Printers
This type of dot-matrix printer has holes drilled into the print head. Thin wires go through these holes. When a dot needs to be made, pawls actuated by solenoids hit the wires causing them to strike the ribbon and create a dot. The magnetic energy is converted into kinetic energy of the wires which strike the ribbon and return to the start position. This whole mechanism can be done in 300 microseconds. The main advantage of these printers was that they had a low cost of ownership since there was very little wear and tear. After about a million characters though, ink wears down the block loosening the channels and leading to smudges and illegible printing.
Speeds for these printers were similar to speeds for stored energy printers, with
quality ranging from 50 dots per inch (dpi) to 300 dpi. Due to their bulky size
and expense of production, most people abandoned them for inkjet printers.
picture from:
epinions.com
