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Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?

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  Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-04-15 07:09 -0700
    Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-04-15 17:20 +0000
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-04-15 19:03 +0000
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-04-15 15:24 -0400
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2016-04-17 10:44 -0400
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? David Wade <dave.g4ugm@gmail.com> - 2016-04-17 17:57 +0100
    Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-04-15 10:39 -0700

#162498 — Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?

On Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 9:04:26 PM UTC-6, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
 
> The IBM 1403 printer came out in 1960.  I don't think IBM's technique
> for high quality printing was a big secret, unless it was patented.  I
> don't understand why other makers failed to come up with high speed
> printers of decent quality.

Yes, it was patented.

The 1403 moved the letters sideways, so if the hammer hit them at the wrong 
time, they were moved sideways, but the line was straight.

Most other line printers were drum printers, the letters moved up or down, so 
if the hammers had a timing error, the line was uneven, which was more visually 
objectionable.

As a grad student, though, I worked with a Honeywell 516 which had a Honeywell 
line printer which, although it was a drum printer, produced beautifully 
aligned output - I guess it had been recently adjusted, and had received light 
usage.

Nobody ever took advantage of the IBM principle of moving the letters sideways 
to allow a line printer to print with proportional spacing. I find that a pity.

John Savard

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#162513

On 2016-04-15, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> Nobody ever took advantage of the IBM principle of moving the letters
> sideways to allow a line printer to print with proportional spacing.
> I find that a pity.

It's an interesting idea, but the technology wasn't up to it.  First of
all, it was hard enough to get the timing right for fixed-pitch spacing.
I don't think the CEs would enjoy the kind of fiddling with printer
adjustments that you'd need to get proportional spacing to look decent.
Secondly, the kind of typefaces that use proportional spacing are
detailed enough that you wouldn't be able to read them too well given
the resolution of line printers of the day.  Remember, you're working
with a fabric ribbon; if you look closely at a printout you can sometimes
almost see the weave.  Furthermore, the paper quality usually wasn't
high enough to accept such detailed impressions.  If you can find an
old printout, take a good close look at it.  Even on an IBM 1403 -
the gold standard of the day - the edges of the characters aren't
perfectly sharp.

Oh, and I almost forgot... these printers have one hammer for each
print position (typically 132 across).  Each hammer fires when the
proper character comes opposite it.  (Some printers cut costs by having
double-width hammers, each handling two adjacent print positions.
You'd need two passes to print a line: odd-numbered positions on one
pass, even-numbered on the next.)  With proportional spacing you'd
wind up with characters spanning two hammers.  As it is, the CEs were
working with timing in the tens of microseconds - tweaking this for
proportional spacing would likely exceed the limits of mechanical
engineering of the time, at least at a price that anyone would
be willing to pay.

Even if you could build such a printer that would stay in alignment
for more than 5 minutes, you'd need a boatload of electronics to
control it - and electronics was expensive back then.  It would also
run so much slower that you'd be better off just having a secretary
type your letter on a Selectric.

And I'd hate to think of the programming that would be involved.
We had to work hard enough to squeeze code into memory as it was.

For your typical company grinding out invoices or statistical reports,
it just wasn't worth it.

As for moving letters sideways, IBM wasn't the only one to do so.
The Univac 9300 used an oscillating typebar similar to that on the
IBM 1443.  Later models from various manufacturers used an embossed
band, much like the blade of a band saw running horizontally.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

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#162520

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:
>On 2016-04-15, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>

>As for moving letters sideways, IBM wasn't the only one to do so.
>The Univac 9300 used an oscillating typebar similar to that on the
>IBM 1443.  Later models from various manufacturers used an embossed
>band, much like the blade of a band saw running horizontally.

Indeed.  Burrough long used train printers, and started selling
band printers in the mid 80's.

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#162525

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> On 2016-04-15, Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> 
>> Nobody ever took advantage of the IBM principle of moving the letters
>> sideways to allow a line printer to print with proportional spacing.
>> I find that a pity.
> 
> It's an interesting idea, but the technology wasn't up to it.  First of
> all, it was hard enough to get the timing right for fixed-pitch spacing.
> I don't think the CEs would enjoy the kind of fiddling with printer
> adjustments that you'd need to get proportional spacing to look decent.
> Secondly, the kind of typefaces that use proportional spacing are
> detailed enough that you wouldn't be able to read them too well given
> the resolution of line printers of the day.  Remember, you're working
> with a fabric ribbon; if you look closely at a printout you can sometimes
> almost see the weave.  Furthermore, the paper quality usually wasn't
> high enough to accept such detailed impressions.  If you can find an
> old printout, take a good close look at it.  Even on an IBM 1403 -
> the gold standard of the day - the edges of the characters aren't
> perfectly sharp.
> 
> Oh, and I almost forgot... these printers have one hammer for each
> print position (typically 132 across).  Each hammer fires when the
> proper character comes opposite it.  (Some printers cut costs by having
> double-width hammers, each handling two adjacent print positions.
> You'd need two passes to print a line: odd-numbered positions on one
> pass, even-numbered on the next.)  With proportional spacing you'd
> wind up with characters spanning two hammers.  As it is, the CEs were
> working with timing in the tens of microseconds - tweaking this for
> proportional spacing would likely exceed the limits of mechanical
> engineering of the time, at least at a price that anyone would
> be willing to pay.
> 
> Even if you could build such a printer that would stay in alignment
> for more than 5 minutes, you'd need a boatload of electronics to
> control it - and electronics was expensive back then.  It would also
> run so much slower that you'd be better off just having a secretary
> type your letter on a Selectric.
> 
> And I'd hate to think of the programming that would be involved.
> We had to work hard enough to squeeze code into memory as it was.
> 
> For your typical company grinding out invoices or statistical reports,
> it just wasn't worth it.
> 
> As for moving letters sideways, IBM wasn't the only one to do so.
> The Univac 9300 used an oscillating typebar similar to that on the
> IBM 1443.  Later models from various manufacturers used an embossed
> band, much like the blade of a band saw running horizontally.
> 

The band printers produced at least as good quality as the 1403, as long as
they were kept clean.  They came along much later, though.  We used a DEC
something-or-other, LP27 maybe, that I think was made by Dataproducts and
did a really nice job.

-- 
Pete

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#162612

In article <ner7s0121rv@news3.newsguy.com>,
 Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:

> t's an interesting idea, but the technology wasn't up to it.  First of
> all, it was hard enough to get the timing right for fixed-pitch spacing.

Printers were expensive enough already. If the demand were there it could
be done; demand at the prices demanded, course. We remember that society
as a whole was poorer then and technology more expensive.

Economics again. Funny how often that comes up.

-- 
 To terrify children with the image of hell,
 to consider women an inferior creation is that good for the world?  
  Christopher Hitchens

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#162629

On 17/04/2016 15:44, Walter Bushnell wrote:
> In article <ner7s0121rv@news3.newsguy.com>,
>   Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>
>> t's an interesting idea, but the technology wasn't up to it.  First of
>> all, it was hard enough to get the timing right for fixed-pitch spacing.
>
> Printers were expensive enough already. If the demand were there it could
> be done; demand at the prices demanded, course. We remember that society
> as a whole was poorer then and technology more expensive.
>
> Economics again. Funny how often that comes up.
>
On reflection, many printers only had an upper case character set, as 
using mixed case meant the train had fewer repeats, or the drum was 
bigger and more expensive, so proportional spacing was never going to be 
part of mainstream, bulk, mechanical printing.

When I worked for an Insurance Company we printed the Life Policy 
Documents on Flexowriters that could do mixed case. At they same time 
they produced the input to the "Mainframe" database on paper tape. This 
was converted to Mag Tape on a modified Honeywell KeyTape machine.

I couldn't find a proper piccy but the drawning here:-

http://www.histoireinform.com/Histoire/+infos2/chr4inf2.htm

is fairly accurate.

dave

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#162516

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
> Nobody ever took advantage of the IBM principle of moving the letters
> sideways to allow a line printer to print with proportional spacing. I
> find that a pity.

past posts mentioning 1403 train for printing logic diagrams, letters
sideways and RPQ to print across page performation. sideways printing
http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2005k.html#59 Book on computer architecture for beginners
http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2005l.html#0 Book on computer architecture for beginners
http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#82 printer history Languages influenced by PL/1

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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