All-points addressable dot printer
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorJohann H. Meier
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An all-points addressable dot printer has rows of sloped parallel anvils on a rotating drum. Alternate rows slope in opposite directions for bi-directional printing with a single row of hammer blades. The blades which are spaced apart, are shifted bi-directionally in synchronism with the scanning motion of the anvils to print dots at all dot line points. A second embodiment has a reciprocating comb bar located between the blades and a print medium. Spring fingers on the comb bar have dot forming protrusions. The spring fingers are uniformly spaced with center spacing equal to the center distances between the blades. Comb bar motion is linear with time along the line segments. Blade motion is simple harmonic.
Claims15
An all-points addressable dot printer apparatus comprising in combination,
- a plurality of sloping bar anvils adapted to be individually impacted by a plurality of longitudinal hammer blades, said plural sloping anvils being arranged mutually parallel in a row extending parallel with a print line, and each anvil having a longitudinal span corresponding to a plural dot line segment of a continuous multi-segment longitudinal print line,
- said sloping anvils in combination spanning all dot positions of said continuous multi-segment print line,
- said plural blades being longitudinally aligned parallel with said print line,
- said blades being spaced apart and each having a width less than said longitudinal span of corresponding ones of said sloping anvils,
- means for effecting relative motion of said anvils and said blades whereby said anvils in combination scan every dot position of said print line, and
- means for shifting said plural hammer blades longitudinally in synchronism with said anvils by at least the differential amount between said span of said anvils and said width of said hammer blades whereby said anvils are impactable by said blades at every addressable dot position of said print line.
An all-points addressable dot printer apparatus comprising in combination, a recording medium;
- means to advance said recording medium by one vertical dot spacing at a time;
- a plurality of equal-length hammer blades being longitudinally aligned with a horizontal print line,
- said print line comprising contiguous multiple dot print line segments of equal length along said print line with the center-distance of said segments being equal to the center-distance between said blades;
- said blades being spaced apart by a gap of one or more dots and each having a multiple dot length along said print line less than the center-distance between said blades;
- scanning means coacting with said blades for recording dots on said recording medium at all dot positions of said print line, said scanning means comprising plural scanning elements operable along the length of said print line segments so that subsequent strikes of said blades cause adjacent dots to be printed;
- said scanning means alternating between left to right and right to left along said segments;
- and
- means for oscillating said blades in synchronism with said scanning means in the direction of said print line, the total amplitude of oscillation of said blades being at least equal to said gap between said blades.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.