Drum Printer


Drum printers were a type of very fast impact line printer. The entire character set is engraved on the outside of a metal drum, for every column of print. As the drum spins, a hammer strikes through the paper and ink ribbon, timed to hit the correct character as it comes around on the rotating drum. In this way, an entire line of text can be printed simultaneously, in the time it takes for the drum to rotate once. (In practice, many drum printers (this one included) actually have a hammer for every other spot, so it take two passes to print one line.)

Manufacturer Dataproducts
Model ?
Classification Line Printer
Introduced ?