A look back: Printing in the 1980s

We may not print much these days; much of our work is delivered electronically, and viewed only on screens. Printing on paper is quite rare. For example, I have a laser printer to support my consulting work, but I haven't turned it on in several months.

In the 1980s, printing was quite common, both for home at work. And there were many ways to print from computers, including thermal printers, dot matrix printers, daisy wheel printers, and early laser printers.

Dot matrix printers operated by firing a series of pins through an inked ribbon, with each pin leaving a mark on the page. Thermal printers operated on a similar principle with "printing with pins" but by heating the pins and striking the pins against temperature-sensitive paper. In each case, the print head moves left to right, and the series of dots forms letters.

Daisy wheel printers operated like classic electric typewriters by striking a fully formed letter shape against the page through an inked ribbon. These printers were limited only to plain text; they could not print graphics.

Take a step back in time with this video from the BBC Archive, from a BBC program called Micro Live, originally broadcast on BBC Two, Saturday 27 October, 1984.