The personal printer refers to the device that prints from the computer. The first computer printer was a mechanical driven apparatus by Charles Babbage in the 19th century and was into the 20th century when it was actually built. The earlier personal printers used mechanism from the electrical typewriter. The first electronic printer was invented by the Japanese company Epson and released in 1968.
The commercial developed earlier used mechanisms from the electrical typewriter or the teletype. These were generally slow. The use of computers led to the demand for higher speeds leading to the development of new systems. This led to the use of daisy wheel similar to the typewriter, but at higher speeds, the dot matrix printer which could mix both text and images but still at lower speeds. The plotter was developed for printing line drawings like inthe blue print.
The modern day printers
The year 1984 saw the revolution in printing industry called the desk top publication with the introduction of the laser jet printer by HP and the Apple laser Writer. The HP DeskJet of 1988 was another milestone in printing in terms of economy. The inkjet printers rapidly replaced the dot matrix and daisy wheel printers from the market. In the 1990’s printing jobs like fliers and brochures were now created on personal computers and then printed on laser printers. The days of offset printing were numbered. By 2000, the high quality printers start selling at affordable prices and now common people can have at their homes.
Economy of printing
Each company has its policy on pricing of the computer and its peripherals. Some companies price their printers low while charging heavily on the cartridges and the tones. Similarly some of the replacement parts are very heavily priced. The consumables are usually not interchangeable and one must use only the company manufactured consumable. These are some of the factors one must consider when buying a printer. The recurring cost should be carefully considered. As a way of marketing strategy some printers have made the consumable cheap. With so many variable it would be wise to contact reputable printer dealers like 123ink for your needs. So, there are two distinct marketing strategies. “Cheap printer, expensive ink” or “Expensive printer, cheap ink”. It is a choice one should consider carefully.
The future of Personal Printers
With the widespread use of emails, internet etc,the need for printing as a storage has become less prevalent. With storage facility gettingcheaper with choices of inbuilt or outsourced the need for printing is getting reduced further. The only printing that is common now is photographs. Or artwork. An idle printer poses problems as of dried ink, clogged printer heads etc and therefore it is more advantageous to get your art work printed at some common printing point via the internet.
