daisy wheel
An earlier print mechanism that used a plastic or metal hub with spokes like an old-fashioned wagon wheel minus the outer rim. At the end of each spoke is the carved image of a type character.
When the required character spins around to the print hammer, the image is banged into a ribbon and onto paper. The mechanism is then moved to the next location. Daisy wheel printers print typewriter-like quality from 10 to 75 cps and have been superseded by dot matrix and laser printers.
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| Daisy Wheel |
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| In the early 1980s, daisy wheel printers cost $3,000 and more. They clicked and clacked to produce near typewriter-quality output. The technology was popular because you could change the fonts by changing wheels. |
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| The First Edition |
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| All 330 terms in the first edition of The Computer Glossary (the origin of this Encyclopedia) were written in 1980 on an 8-bit microcomputer and printed on a daisy wheel printer. Because the daisy wheels contained only one font size, the term names were left blank so that large Kroytype labels could be pressed on by hand afterwards. |