Daisy wheel printing

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Part of a series on the
History of printing
Techniques Woodblock printing 200 Movable type 1040 Intaglio (printmaking) 1430 Printing press c. 1440 Etching c. 1515 Mezzotint 1642 Relief printing 1690 Aquatint 1772 Lithography 1796 Chromolithography 1837 Rotary press 1843 Hectograph 1860 Offset printing 1875 Hot metal typesetting 1884 Mimeograph 1885 Daisy wheel printing 1889 Photostat and rectigraph 1907 Screen printing 1911 Spirit duplicator 1923 Dot matrix printing 1925 Xerography 1938 Spark printing 1940 Phototypesetting 1949 Inkjet printing 1950 Dye-sublimation 1957 Laser printing 1969 Thermal printing c. 1972 Solid ink printing 1972 Thermal-transfer printing 1981 3D printing 1986 Digital printing 1991
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Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor^[1] at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to premium typewriters such as the IBM Selectric, but two to three times faster. Daisy wheel printing was used in electronic typewriters, word processors and computers from 1972. The daisy wheel is so named because of its resemblance to the daisy flower.^[2]

By 1980 daisy wheel printers had become the dominant technology for high-quality text printing, grossly impacting the dominance of manual and electric typewriters, and forcing dominant companies in that industry, including Brother and Silver Seiko to rapidly adapt — and new companies, e.g., Canon and Xerox, to enter the personal and office market for daisy wheel typewriters. The personal and office printing industry would soon adapt again to the advent of the PC and word processing software.

Dot-matrix impact, thermal, or line printers were used where higher speed or image printing were required and where their print quality was acceptable. Both technologies were rapidly superseded for most purposes when dot-based printers, in particular laser and ink jet printers, capable of printing any characters, graphics, typefaces or fonts, rather than a limited, 96 character set, gradually were able to produce output of comparable quality. Daisy wheel technology is now mostly defunct, though is still found in electronic typewriters.