The unique IBM 1403 Model 3 (IBM 1403 Model C) printer came out in 1963 with the IBM 1460 computer system, an upgrade to the legendary IBM 1401 – that was one From the first transistor computers in the world, which went to open sale. This revolutionary system made the transition from punched cards and patch panels to magnetic tapes.
The IBM 1401 computer introduced in October 1959 turned out to be several times cheaper than previous generation lamp computers – it could be installed in the company for only $ 6500 in Month ($ 54,000 for modern money), and he was an order of magnitude smaller, did not occupy a whole room. Within a month, IBM received 3,000 orders for IBM 1401 – more orders than there were computers in the world at that time.
In 1963 he published a more advanced version of the IBM 1460 with twice the capacity – just 6 microseconds per cycle. And with it – the printer-record holder IBM 1403 Model 3, incredibly fast even by modern standards. He gave out 1100 lines of text per minute, absorbing a roll of paper with a crazy speed. Just manage to change the rolls.
A girl programmer is feeding a roll to the printer IBM 1403
How did he do it? About this tells the magazine IEEE Spectrum .
Most of all, the principle of printing IBM 1403 resembles a matrix print. As in Nij, paint is applied by contact of the paper with the printheads through an ink ribbon. But otherwise there are important differences.
First, five identical sets of 48 embossed metal symbols were installed in the printer, as if in a typewriter, all connected in a horizontal chain that rotated at a speed of 5.2 meters in Second before the incoming roll of paper and the ink ribbon.
Secondly, the character printing was carried out not by pressing the symbol to the ink ribbon with paper, as in a typewriter, but, on the contrary, pressing the paper to the desired place of a madly rotating chain with metal symbols – with schyu small electromagnetic hammers.
This technique proved to be extremely fruitful. Over the years, eight IBM 1403 models came out. Some had 132 hammers, one for each printed column. Each such element was driven by an electromagnet. As soon as the desired symbol in the metal chain appeared behind the ink ribbon in the right place – the hammer worked in 11 microseconds.
When 132 hammers were knocking simultaneously at a frenzied speed, this created unbearable noise. The noise was so strong that it prompted some engineers to write music for the printer.
Different sequences of characters kicking hammers with a different tone, and blend those sounds into different frequency hum, a kind of “music”. Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson says that the program for the generation of this music on the printer was written by his father, who worked with the first versions of the IBM 1401.
In IBM 1403 Model 3, the original metal chain with symbols was replaced by individual elements in the tracks, Which were driven by separate gears. Due to this, the printing speed was increased to a record high of 55 milliseconds per line, which corresponds to 1100 lines in a minute. And if you limit the printing to only a certain subset of the characters, then the speed increased and does not exceed 1400 lines. Such a number of lines (1100 ppm) corresponds to approximately 47 typewritten pages (standard, typewritten page contains 29-31 lines). That is, an ancient office printer in 1963 printed 47 pages of text per minute.
For comparison, today the world record for the speed of color printing on the office printer belongs to the Hewlett-Packard models Officejet Pro X551dw and Officejet Pro X576dw All-in-One . They print 500 color pages in 7 minutes 19 seconds.
The fastest modern inkjet printer with 5198 nozzles produces 100 pages per minute.
All these wonders of modern technologies are quite comparable in speed with electromagnetic hammers from IBM sample in 1963. Although laser printing allowed printing at the same speed as early as the 1970s, IBM continued selling IBM 1403 series printers until the 1980s. And even now the company believes that they are “the quality standard for high-speed contact printing.”
