Printer (computing) in the context of Peripheral bus

Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed technique, rather than a photographic reproduction of a visual artwork which would be printed using an electronic machine (a printer); however, there is some cross-over between traditional and digital printmaking, including risograph.

Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix to a sheet of paper or other material, by a variety of techniques. Common types of matrices include: metal plates for engraving, etching and related intaglio printing techniques; stone, aluminum, or polymer for lithography; blocks of wood for woodcuts and wood engravings; and linoleum for linocuts. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screen printing process. Other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below.

A braille embosser is an impact printer that renders text as tactile braille cells. Using braille translation software, a document or digital text can be embossed with relative ease. Braille embossers can emboss single-sided or double-sided (called interpoint) and can produce 6- or 8-dot braille.

Blind users tend to call other printers "ink printers," to distinguish them from their braille counterparts. This is often the case regardless of the type of printer being discussed (e.g., thermal printers being called "ink printers" even though they use no ink).

Dot matrix printing, sometimes called impact matrix printing, is a computer printing process in which ink is applied to a surface using a relatively low-resolution dot matrix for layout. Dot matrix printers are a type of impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires and typically use a print head that moves back and forth or in an up-and-down motion on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers. Unlike typewriters or line printers that use a similar print mechanism, a dot matrix printer can print arbitrary patterns and not just specific characters.

The perceived quality of dot matrix printers depends on the vertical and horizontal resolution and the ability of the printer to overlap adjacent dots. 9-pin and 24-pin are common; this specifies the number of pins in a specific vertically aligned space. With 24-pin printers, the horizontal movement can slightly overlap dots, producing visually superior output (near letter-quality or NLQ), usually at the cost of speed.

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling very fine droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines. By 2019, laser printers outsold inkjet printers by nearly a 2:1 ratio, 9.6% vs 5.1% of all computer peripherals.

The concept of inkjet printing originated in the 20th century, and the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. While working at Canon in Japan, Ichiro Endo suggested the idea for a "bubble jet" printer, while around the same time Jon Vaught at Hewlett-Packard (HP) was developing a similar idea. In the late 1970s, inkjet printers that could reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed, mainly by Epson, HP and Canon. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, HP, Epson and Brother.

Color management is the process of ensuring consistent and accurate colors across various devices, such as monitors, printers, and cameras. It involves the use of color profiles, which are standardized descriptions of how colors should be displayed or reproduced.

Color management is necessary because different devices have different color capabilities and characteristics. For example, a monitor may display colors differently than a printer can reproduce them. Without color management, the same image may appear differently on different devices, leading to inconsistencies and inaccuracies.

An output device is any piece of computer hardware that converts information or data into a human-perceptible form or, historically, into a physical machine-readable form for use with other non-computerized equipment. It can be text, graphics, tactile, audio, or video. Examples include monitors, printers and sound cards.

In an industrial setting, output devices also include "printers" for paper tape and punched cards, especially where the tape or cards are subsequently used to control industrial equipment, such as an industrial loom with electrical robotics which is not fully computerized

Sharp Corporation (シャープ株式会社, Shāpu Kabushiki-gaisha) is a Japanese electronics company. It is headquartered in Sakai, Osaka, and was founded by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1912 in Honjo, Tokyo, and established as the Hayakawa Metal Works Institute in Abeno-ku, Osaka, in 1924. Since 2016, it is majority owned by the Taiwan-based manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd., better known as Foxconn.

Sharp makes and has made throughout its history various different consumer electronic products, including kitchen appliances such as microwave ovens, cookers, washing machines and refrigerators; home appliances such as solar cells, vacuum cleaners, air purifiers dehumidifier and lighting; home and office devices such as printers, computer displays, TV sets, camcorders, VCRs, as well as calculators and various audio products such as radios, audio systems and wireless speakers.

A desktop computer, often abbreviated as desktop, is a personal computer designed for regular use at a stationary location on or near a desk (as opposed to a portable computer) due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply, motherboard (a printed circuit board with a microprocessor as the central processing unit, memory, bus, certain peripherals and other electronic components), disk storage (usually one or more hard disk drives, solid-state drives, optical disc drives, and in early models floppy disk drives); a keyboard and mouse for input; and a monitor, speakers, and, often, a printer for output. The case may be oriented horizontally or vertically and placed either underneath, beside, or on top of a desk.

Desktop computers with their cases oriented vertically are referred to as towers. As the majority of cases offered since the mid 1990s are in this form factor, the term desktop has been retronymically used to refer to modern cases offered in the traditional horizontal orientation.

Canon Inc. (Japanese: キヤノン株式会社; Hepburn: Kyanon kabushiki gaisha) is a Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, specializing in optical, imaging, and industrial products, such as lenses, cameras, medical equipment, scanners, printers, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment.

Canon has a primary listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the TOPIX Core 30 and Nikkei 225 indexes. It used to have a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the host) to behave like another computer system (called the guest). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system.Emulation refers to the ability of a computer program in an electronic device to emulate (or imitate) another program or device.

Many printers, for example, are designed to emulate HP LaserJet printers because a significant amount of software is written specifically for HP models. If a non-HP printer emulates an HP printer, any software designed for an actual HP printer will also function on the non-HP device, producing equivalent print results. Since at least the 1990s, many video game enthusiasts and hobbyists have used emulators to play classic arcade games from the 1980s using the games' original 1980s machine code and data, which is interpreted by a current-era system, and to emulate old video game consoles (see video game console emulator).

The Burroughs Corporation was a major American manufacturer of business equipment. The company was founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company by William Seward Burroughs. The company's history paralleled many of the major developments in computing. At its start, it produced mechanical adding machines, and later moved into programmable ledgers and then computers. It was one of the largest producers of mainframe computers in the world, also producing related equipment including typewriters and printers.

In the 1960s, the company introduced a range of mainframe computers that were well regarded for their performance running high-level languages. These formed the core of the company's business into the 1970s. At that time the emergence of superminicomputers and the dominance of the IBM System/360 and 370 at the high end led to shrinking markets, and in 1986 the company purchased former competitor Sperry UNIVAC and merged their operations to form Unisys.

Networking cable is a piece of networking hardware used to connect one network device to other network devices or to connect two or more computers to share devices such as printers or scanners. Different types of network cables, such as coaxial cable, optical fiber cable, and twisted pair cables, are used depending on the network's topology, protocol, and size. The devices can be separated by a few meters (e.g. via Ethernet) or nearly unlimited distances (e.g. via the interconnections of the Internet).

While wireless networks are more easily deployed when total throughput is not an issue, most permanent larger computer networks utilize cables to transfer signals from one point to another.

A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office building. This gives users the ability to move around within the area and remain connected to the network. Through a gateway, a WLAN can also provide a connection to the wider Internet.

Wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11 standards are the most widely used computer networks in the world. These are commonly called Wi-Fi, which is a trademark belonging to the Wi-Fi Alliance. They are used for home and small office networks that link together laptop computers, printers, smartphones, Web TVs and gaming devices through a wireless network router, which in turn may link them to the Internet. Hotspots provided by routers at restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, libraries, and airports allow consumers to access the internet with portable wireless devices.

Charles Babbage KH FRS (/ˈbæbɪdʒ/; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.

Babbage is considered by some to merit the title of "father of the computer". He is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, the difference engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in his analytical engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom. As part of his computer work, he also designed the first computer printers. He had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers, covered in his 1832 book Economy of Manufactures and Machinery. He was an important figure in the social scene in London, and is credited with importing the "scientific soirée" from France with his well-attended Saturday evening soirées. His varied work in other fields has led him to be described as "pre-eminent" among the many polymaths of his century.

An ink ribbon or inked ribbon is an expendable assembly serving the function of transferring pigment to paper in various devices for impact printing. Since such assemblies were first widely used on typewriters, they were often called typewriter ribbons, but ink ribbons were already in use with other printing and marking devices. Ink ribbons are part of standard designs for hand- or motor-driven typewriters, teleprinters, stenotype machines, computer-driven printers, and many mechanical calculators. Thousands of varieties of ink ribbons and ribbon cartridges have been produced, and are available from stationery suppliers.