Talk:Printer (computing)

Business model
"Most computer printers are sold on the 'razor and razor blades' business model, where the printers are sold at artificially low prices in order to lock the user in to consuming a stream of ink cartridges sold at inflated prices."

Two problems with this: it's not NPOV, and it is rather particular to ink jet printers, rather than printers in general. I'm moving a toned down version over to the ink jet article. -- Ryguasu 12:50, 29 October 2002 (UTC)

Messy uncited page
I've done a little bit of clean-up work on this page to fix some of the text (most of which is pretty good as is) and to try and make the headings a little more clear. This page is unnecessarily messy and has too many headings. It really needs to be worked over a bit to organize it better. It also has issues with being completely uncited.--Lendorien 15:17, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Dangerous Particles
I was logging on at uni, and the potential dangers of printers has been discussed on QUT website. This was an unexpected find, but they're doing more research into it. I have edited toner printers breifly to show this. 131.181.65.137 23:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Transfer from article to talk page
I have removed the following from the main article and put it here because it doesnt belong in the main article, but might be worth researching/reformatting to include later:


 * Mobile Minature Printers

Perhaps a product in the near future would be a mobile minature printer for photo and document printing. Would add convenience while increasing value to the end user.

Miniature integrated printed with handheld devices facilitate workers on the move to be more productive print information on the fly.

Lets C if minatuarization has gone that far! Something to see in the near term

StealthFox 01:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

colors in printers
how the printers will identify which color has to be printed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.144.172 (talk) 04:35, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

An idea
How about a mentioning of how printers don't work 95% of the time and just give shitty looking blue, pink, and yellow? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.23.212.206 (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Because most people who have the intelligence to use a computer can figure out how to use a printer. Knucktwo (talk) 21:45, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Spam
I just removed the following from the section on line printers. The two companies mentioned are the same company, and the paragraph has been inserted by an IP belonging to printronix...

"Line printers, better known as linematrix printers are widely used in the automotive, logistic and banking world for high speed and barcode printing. They are known as robust and durable printers that have the lowest price per page (form). Companies as Printronix Inc. and TallyGenicom are the leading manufactures today."

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.17.72.220 (talk) 10:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

paper feed types
Should this article have a section describing the variety of ways paper goes through printers (and possibly scanners), analogous to offset printing? Or is there already some other article on that topic? Something that mentions sprocket-fed continuous stationery, friction-feed cut sheet feeders, vacuum-lift cut sheet feeders, etc. ? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 03:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Line Printer
Yeah the title "Line Printer," is in one of those grey box thingy majiggers. You might want to have that removed. In order to make it a title you need to put two equal signs (==) front and back to make a title. Please would someone correct this mistake.-James Pandora Adams —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.176.152.59 (talk) 21:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Look out for possible copyright violations in this article
This article has been found to be edited by students of the India Education Program project as part of their (still ongoing) course-work. Unfortunately, many of the edits in this program so far have been identified as plain copy-jobs from books and online resources and therefore had to be reverted. See the India Education Program talk page for details. In order to maintain the WP standards and policies, let's all have a careful eye on this and other related articles to ensure that no material violating copyrights remains in here. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 12:40, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't know whether it is related or not but there still seems to be some copyright violations around (or at least I just removed one) with the odd word changed here and there. -- wintonian  talk  15:08, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Critique-Printer(computing) HIST406-13110618904
The article begins by describing the function of the Printer and how it operates. It then gives examples of different types of printers, while providing acronyms along with the full names to inform the reader. The article then offers information on the productivity of the printer, and suggests that the printing press is a more preferred tool than the printer, when printing a large number of items. It then states that the first computer printer was created in the 19th century. The article gives descriptions of several different types of printers, more than i knew existed, and their different functions and methods of printing, one for example uses heat along with special paper to print out such things as receipts. And finishes by describing various attributes, such as speed, and different printing modes. In my opinion the writing style does not seem aimed at people who already have an understanding of the technology, but at people who know very little. It does not appear to me that this article is full of "big" words that could confuse the reader, but is very good at explaining what everything is and does.

While this article does provide a fair amount of pictures of several different types of printers, a majority of the printer types do not have photos to associate themselves with, and in my opinion they should be added so that the reader can put a "face" to the printer type.

While some of the sources referenced in this article do seem very credible, ie IBM journal of Research and Development, others do not seem as credible. Some sources used are from news stations, which can be credible, but are not peer-reviewed. This article could use more peer-reviewed sources to lend more credibility.

I did not find any frivolous or spurious contributions in the article, however after reading other entries in the talk section it has been noted that some people have copied and pasted things from other sources. However people have mentioned that they have actively been removing them.

When comparing this article to the one on Computer Printers in the Encyclopedia Britannica, i found that the Wikipedia article provides far more information on the topic, as well as longer descriptions of the different kinds of printers.

As i said previously, i suggest the addition of more images so that each printer type has an image to give the reader an idea of what that printer looks like. Also i noticed that there was very little information on the creation and development of the printer, in order for this to be a great article instead of a good one, it should include the history of the printer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.129.86 (talk) 06:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Daisy wheel quality
"These printers were also referred to as letter-quality printers because, during their heyday, they could produce text which was as clear and crisp as a typewriter, though they were nowhere near the quality of printing presses." is incorrect. It wuold be true if such printers only used cloth ribbons, but with the carbon ribbons preferred for daisywheels the print quality was as good as metal print and more consistent, and vastly superior to traditional typewriters using cloth ribbon.

If you think about it, the printing element on a daisy operates like much traditional metal print, in that its a moulded character that presses carbon powder onto paper. 82.31.66.207 (talk) 10:42, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Braille printers
Maybe there should be section about printing Braille (Braille embosser) in section about printers that do not use ink. Or in special purpose section. --94.142.238.245 (talk) 11:30, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Cartridge patents
"To protect their business model, several manufacturers invest heavily in developing new cartridge technology and patenting it."

Some may criticize this as not resulting in any advancements because companies are merely obtaining patents to limit competition on cartridges to their particular printers without introducing improvements which is antithetical to the intent of the patent system. When the patent to one toner cartridge expires a company can simply discontinue the associated printers and patent a new design that introduces no advancements to prior designs but is merely meant to lock competitors out of making competing cartridges to new printers on the market.

Also how much R&D really needs to go into simply changing the form factor of a printer cartridge just to obtain a new patent and lock competitors out? Some may argue that the R&D necessary is not that extensive.

Not sure if any of these possible criticisms should be mentioned in the article but they are at least worth discussing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.248.197.0 (talk) 15:53, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Regarding toner
In the Technology section, it says:

"documents printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with toner or solid inks".

Since this is the first time the article mentions toner, should there be a short explanation as to what toner is, or would the link I added to the article on it be enough? KaraLG84 (talk) 21:51, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

History (first printer)
As the S-C 4020 Microfilm Printer was introduced in 1959, suggesting the Teletype Corporation manufactured the "first patented printer" is a little misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.197.246 (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Tabulators gained the ability to print around 1920. Were there really no patents for them? Seems that printing tabulators/unit record machines deserve a mention.
 * Cash registers also could print much earlier than that. Faught (talk) 04:51, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 17 December 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus. Though it was undisputed that Printer (computing) leads other "printer"-titled topics in pageviews, the question of long-term significance prevented a consensus from emerging around whether the computing device is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Some participants in the discussion asserted that the computing device had comparable significance to topics like Printer (publishing), and therefore the pageview argument should be determinative; other participants asserted that the publishing topic had greater significance and that the computing device's views were buoyed by recentism. The two sides presented arguments of comparable strength, and consequently a consensus did not form in either direction. (non-admin closure) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 17:29, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

– Most people would associate the word "printer" only with the computing device. WMCloud shows that this page is by far the most viewed on the disambiguation page (excluding the help page). These factors hint that the computing device is the primary topic for "Printer" and therefore it should be titled as such. Computerfan0 (talk) 16:17, 17 December 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Printer (computing) → Printer
 * Printer → Printer (disambiguation)
 * Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:02, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * How is Gutenberg a computer peripheral? In ictu oculi (talk) 12:48, 27 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Shwcz (talk) 01:24, 18 December 2022 (UTC) wp:sockstrike – robertsky (talk) 15:16, 2 January 2023 (UTC)
 * https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Printer indicates that the computing usage is the most common, but it's less than 50% of incoming traffic, so the case for short-circuiting navigation by usage isn't nearly as strong as the page views imply. At the same time, the disambiguation page header is formatted in a way that already assumes the computing usage is the primary topic, so maybe just that sentence is sufficient for a lot of readers? Let's switch it over and then later see if people click on the hatnote a lot. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 10:24, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The data shows that among the links on the dab page, the computing one was followed 436 times, the publishing one: 123 times, and the next two: 37 times, with the clicks for each of the other links <10. So, the computing article got 73% of the clicks that have made it into the dataset, which represents 25% of the total views for the dab page (which for the same period was just over 1,700). – Uanfala (talk) 13:23, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I suspect my thinko outgoing instead of incoming made you say this - I fixed that now, sorry. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93; (talk) 15:40, 18 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. No more notable than a person or company that prints books etc. Clearly not primary topic by long-term significance over the main definition of the word for many centuries. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Relisting comment: for a firmer consensus. – robertsky (talk) 14:50, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Typography has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 14:51, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Computing has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 14:51, 26 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose per WP:RECENTISM. We have at least 1000 years of printing history (see Woodblock printing, 220 CE), about 500 since Gutenberg's movable type. We have no more than about 70 years since teletypes were repurposed for computers. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:13, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That's called a Printing press not a "printer". Rreagan007 (talk) 21:44, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * But the person who operates it (and in general manages a printing business) is a printer. Gutenberg was a printer, for example. For a very long time, the words "printer" and "publisher" were synonyms. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 23:05, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose per WP:RECENTISM and book use. This is precisely what en.wp doesn't do. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:19, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose. In this case, I also prefer to error on the side regarding long-term significance. Both definitions have roughly equal enduring notability and educational value. Zzyzx11 (talk) 17:28, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. The idea of a person or company who prints may have greater long-term significance, but the use of the unqualified term "printer" for this definition is now quite uncommon compared to the computing device. WP:RECENTISM is essentially an argument about reversion to the mean, but the computing usage has been primary by usage for decades and I don't see any signs of it subsiding. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:46, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * It may now be primary in everyday speech, but it is certainly not primary in long-term significance. The volume of literature written about the companies and people who have been printing for hundreds of years vastly outweighs the volume of literature written about the computer peripherals in use for a few decades. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:37, 3 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Support - frankly printers have as much significance as printers, so pageviews should dominate. Red   Slash  23:25, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

India Education Program course assignment
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