[GreenKeys] model 40 update - no suprise on the type carrier aka belt

[Jim Haynes]

On Tue, 31 May 2011, Gerry Block wrote:

> Now you know why the guy who invented the dot matrix printer must have really
> thought he was on to something.
>
And dot matrix printers are still widely used.  You don't see them much
in computer stores, but lots of businesses that need to print multiple
copies still use them.

Dot matrix is a pretty old idea, as in the IBM 026 keypunch; but it took
modern solid state electronics to make it a real winner.  Walt Zenner
claimed that Extel was the first dot matrix teleprinter.  He said they
were really fretting over how to store the dot matrix information; and
then Texas Instruments came out with a ready-made ROM that did the job.
The initial customer for that ROM was Trans-Lux, for use in their
flipping-ball stock market quotation displays.

Teletype's Inktronic was basically a dot matrix printer.  It 
electrostatically deflected ink droplets to form characters, taking
the information from a magnetic memory: magnetic core read/write memory
in early models and magnetic transformer read-only storage in the
later models.  Although some people say that Inktronic was the first
inkjet printer, it had nothing in common with the present day ink jet
printers.