[LINK] Re: to USB

Karl Auer kauer at biplane.com.au
Wed Dec 6 13:48:30 AEDT 2006


On Wed, 2006-12-06 at 12:42 +1100, Chris Maltby wrote:
> The noise was also phenomenal, both the high speed whine of the
> drum and the clatter of the hammer, combined with the yelps from
> the students as the printer chewed up another attempt to print their
> assignments at the last moment.

Chain line printers, a variant on disk line printers: Each character
position on the line had its own chain or disk, arranged on a horizontal
assembly as long as the page was wide. The chains or disks were spun to
place the right letter over each position, then the whole assembly was
hammered forward to print an entire line at once. The noise was
incredible, but they were damn fast. Ours had a fan at the back to force
the paper streaming out down into the collection basket...

Compile errors in my COBOL were followed by a line of asterisks in the
printout. You didn't have to look at the printout to know if you had
errors, you could hear the "whump" from across the room.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)                   +61-2-64957160 (h)
http://www.biplane.com.au/~kauer/                  +61-428-957160 (mob)




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