Microfiche, and its close cousin microfilm, have been around for years. They are valuable research and archive sources in libraries around the world. A microfiche is a 4 by 5 inch (10.2 by 15.2 cm) piece of photographic film, containing printed information in a size too small to be seen by the naked eye. Books, journals and magazines are often archived on microfiche. The advent of microfiche allowed libraries to carry printed resources they would otherwise never have the floor or storage space to hold.
The major advantages of microfiche include storage in a small space, stability of the format, and no special knowledge needed to read it. As long as a microfiche machine is avail
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Plotters are a specialist type of printer which is able to draw high quality images on very largepieces of paper, for example 3 foot wide by 10 foot long.
They are used by engineers, architects and map-makers to draw plans of buildings, diagrams of machines or large scale maps. They can also be used for many other similar tasks.
A plotter differs from a printer in that it draws images using a pen that can be lowered, raised and moved across the paper to form con
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laser printers are used in many workplaces because they are quiet, they print a large number ofsheets very quickly and they produce high quality documents.
They print in the same way as photocopiers. Powdered ink, called 'Toner', is fused onto paper by heat and pressure.
You can purchase a laser printer which prints black and white copies only or you can pick a colour laser printer. Black and white versions are relatively cheap to purchase and you only need to buy one toner (which is also expensive). Colour laser printers are still a little too expensive for most people to purcha
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Ink-jet printers have been popular for a long time because they are relatively cheap to buy and most of them can combine both black and white and colour printing at the same time.
These printers use cartridges which contain ink. They operate by heating the ink as it flows through the nozzle. The heating process causes a small droplet of ink to form. This is then released as a single dot which forms part of a letter or image. This is why the printouts often come out of an ink-jet printer still slightly wet.
They are also called 'impact printers'. The print head contains a grid of pins and different combinations of pins are pushed out to form different characters. The print head then hits a carbon ribbon leaving an imprint on the paper. This makes them fairly noisy as you can hear the pins striking the paper.
Dot-matrix printers are ideal when you need carbon copies. This is because the print head hits the paper with enough force that when carbonised paper is used, the impact makes a copy on the second sheet.
