The Diablo 630 is a discontinued daisy wheel style computer printer sold by the Diablo Data Systems division of the Xerox Corporation beginning in 1980. [1] [2] The printer is capable of letter-quality printing; that is, its print quality is equivalent to the quality of an IBM Selectric typewriter or printer, the de facto quality standard of the time.
The printer is capable of this quality at a nominal speed of 30 characters per second (roughly twice the speed of the Selectric). Several technologies were introduced to enable this quality and speed:
A related model, the Diablo 1620, includes a keyboard and strongly resembles a slightly overgrown Selectric typewriter. In fact, a "local/remote" switch permits it to be used as an offline typewriter as well as an interactive computer terminal. Unfortunately for a typist (in either role), the daisy wheel mechanism hides the area just printed. Firmware in the machine makes the carriage move quickly to the right of the typing position, revealing the most recently typed characters, after a few moments of inactivity. The result was still unsatisfactory to many users. Only a very slow typing speed would allow the wheel to get out of the way after every character; faster typing speeds resulted in the wheel continuously hiding the typed copy until the typist paused. This made checking the copy for errors a bit more awkward and slow than on actual typewriters or on Selectric-based terminals.
The same mechanism was used in Xerox's 850 display typing system and 860PDS word processor, and was also sold to OEMs. One notable user was Digital Equipment Corporation, who resold the printer as the LQP01 (with a parallel interface) and the LQPSE (with an RS-232 serial interface), supported by Digital's WPS-8 word processing software.
The printer became so common, with so much software supporting its command language, that Diablo emulation became an expected feature on other daisy-wheel printers and even on early laser printers. [6] This was so pervasive that at least one company lived by testing printers for full Diablo 630 compatibility. [7]
In computing, a printer is a peripheral machine which makes a persistent representation of graphics or text, usually on paper. While most output is human-readable, bar code printers are an example of an expanded use for printers. Different types of printers include 3D printers, inkjet printers, laser printers, and thermal printers.
A word processor is an electronic device for text, composing, editing, formatting, and printing.
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device.
A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line. Most early line printers were impact printers.
Dot matrix printing, sometimes called impact matrix printing, is a computer printing process in which ink is applied to a surface using a relatively low-resolution dot matrix for layout. Dot matrix printers typically use a print head that moves back and forth or in an up-and-down motion on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper. Unlike typewriters or line printers that use a similar print mechanism, a dot matrix printer can print arbitrary patterns and not just specific characters.
Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to premium typewriters such as the IBM Selectric, but two to three times faster. Daisy wheel printing was used in electronic typewriters, word processors and computers from 1972. The daisy wheel is so named because of its resemblance to the daisy flower.
The IBM Electric typewriters were an early series of electric typewriters that IBM manufactured, starting in the mid-1930s. They used the conventional moving carriage and typebar mechanism, as opposed to the fixed carriage and type ball used in the IBM Selectric, introduced in 1961. After 1944, each model came in both "Standard" and "Executive" versions, the latter featuring proportional spacing.
The IBM 1403 line printer was introduced as part of the IBM 1401 computer in 1959 and had an especially long life in the IBM product line.
The Friden Flexowriter produced by the Friden Calculating Machine Company, was a teleprinter, a heavy-duty electric typewriter capable of being driven not only by a human typing, but also automatically by several methods, including direct attachment to a computer and by use of paper tape.
A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon and the paper, so that each pin makes a small dot on the paper. The combination of these dots forms a dot matrix image. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers.
A letter-quality printer was a form of computer impact printer that was able to print with the quality typically expected from a business typewriter such as an IBM Selectric.
OS/6 is a standalone word processor made by IBM's Office Products Division (OPD), introduced in January, 1977. OS/6 was superseded by the IBM Displaywriter in 1980.
The IBM 2741 is a printing computer terminal that was introduced in 1965. Compared to the teletypewriter machines that were commonly used as printing terminals at the time, the 2741 offers 50% higher speed, much higher quality printing, quieter operation, interchangeable type fonts, and both upper and lower case letters.
Diablo Data Systems was a division of Xerox created by the acquisition of Diablo Systems Inc. for US$29 million in 1972, a company which had been founded in 1969 by George E. Comstock, Charles L. Waggoner and others.
CPT Corporation was founded in 1971 by Dean Scheff in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with co-founders James Wienhold and Richard Eichhorn. CPT first designed, manufactured, and marketed the CPT 4200, a dual-cassette-tape machine that controlled a modified IBM Selectric typewriter to support text editing and word processing.
The Olivetti company, an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines, was founded as a typewriters manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune of Ivrea, Italy.
The IBM Selectric was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961.
The DECwriter series was a family of computer terminals from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). They were typically used in a fashion similar to a teletype, with a computer output being printed to paper and the user inputting information on the keyboard. In contrast to teletypes, the DECwriters were based on dot matrix printer technology, one of the first examples of such a system to be introduced. Versions lacking a keyboard were also available for use as computer printers, which eventually became the only models as smart terminals became the main way to interact with mainframes and minicomputers in the 1980s.
Near letter-quality (NLQ) printing is a process where dot matrix printers produce high-quality text by using multiple passes to produce higher dot density. The tradeoff for the improved print quality is reduced printing speed. Software can also be used to produce this effect. The term was coined in the 1980s to distinguish NLQ printing from true letter-quality printing, as produced by a printer based on traditional typewriter technology such as a daisy wheel, or by a laser printer.
The IBM 1443 Printer is an obsolete computer line printer used in the punched card era. It was offered in three models: Models 1, 2 and N1; the last two could print up to 240 lines per minute (LPM) with a full character set.
The API/ECS Model 630 ... can operate with Diablo's ECS print wheels which can contain two characters per spoke, or up to 192 characters per print wheel. The model 630 ECS/IBM operates with Diablo's specially designed ECS IBM print wheel for the IBM PC character set, as well as all of the 88-, 92- and 96-character print wheels.
The minimum possible increment of horizontal movement is 1/120... The minimum possible increment of vertical movement is 1/48."
In the horizontal direction, the Diablo (and others) is capable of moving the printhead 1/120 of an inch at a time [...] In the vertical direction the Diablo can move the print mechanism in increments of 1/48 of an inch. Thus, the maximum density of information you can print using a Diablo 630 is 120 X 48 in a square inch.