How are impact printers different from nonimpact printers? What are examples of each type of printer?
Impact printers produce their output by a mechanical device physically striking an inked ribbon against the paper. The two main types were daisy wheel printers and dot matrix printers. The former has each symbol on the end of each spoke of a rotary device and the latter has a matrix of rods, each of which prints a dot; the selection of rods that are extended determine the symbol to be printed. Apart from in the case of pre-carboned multi-sheet documents this type of printer is obsolete. Non-impact printers fall into two main camps – ink-jet printers which produce their output using tiny devices like paint sprayers, and laser printers which work by having an electrostatic image of the desired output placed onto the page, onto which toner powder is poured, sticking to the electrostatic image.
