[GreenKeys] Best laid plans..

[jhhaynes at earthlink.net]

The Model 40 came after the Inktronic, and was a much better printer.  And
then there were later printers that I'm not familiar with.

The Inktronic was a brilliant bad idea.  The modern ink jet printer has
no relation to the Inktronic, which worked by electrostatically deflecting
charged ink droplets.  One of the problems was manufacturing 40 sets of
deflecting electrodes that behaved exactly alike.  Another problem was
non-uniformity of the size of the droplets.  And another problem was that
paper dust would accumulate on the deflecting electrodes and distort the
field.

There is a book about Western Electric "Manufacturing the Future" which
barely mentions Teletype.  Toward the end there were two planning 
committees.  One concluded that they needed to add a new plant every year
to keep up with demand for their products.  The other concluded they
need to close a plant every year to cope with reduced demand and a
totally new product line that was less massive than the old one.

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jhhaynes at earthlink dot net