In the old days, there was the Daisy Wheel. Computers printed by sending a string of bytes to a printer wheel that contained the letters of the alphabet. The wheel, in turn, printed the characters much like a type writer would, producing letter quality characters. To change fonts, the wheel had to be changed, a time consuming process. This proved to be an efficient invention, but it lacked in flexibility.
Today, most computers print with a dot matrix system. Several small points (either mechanical pins or electric charges) combine separate small dots to create the characters on the paper. Because of the dot matrix system, font, size, and style of the characters are no longer limited. Character creation is now the responsibility of the System software. The users chooses the
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characters from the key board, and the System tells the printer which pins to combine to make the printed character. Final appearance of the letter is determined by the shape formed by the combination of these pins pressing together. Shape, contour, and style of the characters are only limited to the creativity of their inventor. The clarity of the characters are limited by how many dots per inch your printer can generate. The ImageWriter has minimal smoothness to its fonts since it generates 72 dots per inch, while most LaserWriters make 300 dots per inch yielding a better rendering of the selected Font. Several technologies have emerged to generate characters in the dot matrix