Talk:Ink ribbon
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Line-printer ribbons
[edit]I wrote the following 'graph, under this talk-section's title, and then realized i have no confidence that i wrote accurately. I have the impression of having seen a two-foot-wide, horizontal-axle ribbon for a 132- or 160-column line printer, but on reflection i have no confidence that it represents more than visualizing one implementation which i was about to describe as follows:
- A variation on the reversing cloth ribbon is seen on line-at-a-time impact printers. Like typewriters and most other printers, line printers generally operate with the first line of the page above subsequent lines (i.e. in the position that facilitates reading of what has just been printed). On character-at-a-time devices, this makes it convenient for the ribbon motion to be horizontal. With dozens to a hundred or so characters being impact-printed simultaneously on a line printer, a ribbon about a centimeter wide would have to move horizontally at a much higher velocity than one a substantial fraction of a meter wide could be move vertically. In fact line-printer ribbons move vertically, are as wide as the page being printed, and either pass over rollers, or are wound onto spools, with horizontal instead of vertical axles.
And in fact it occurs to me that a significant figure of merit for the ribbon assembly of a line printer is whether the ribbon wears evenly. If the left 10 columns wear out while the right 40 are essentially new, a ribbon of the same volume that wears evenly reduces downtime for ribbon changes. So it may make sense to have, e.g., a 5-inch-wide ribbon roll obliquely across a 20-inch-wide bank of print heads, so that no distance from the ribbon's edge is dedicated to a single column of the page.
This discarded graph may be a valuable stimulus to someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
--Jerzy•t 09:44, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
Renaming and expansion
[edit]I have renamed the article from "Typewriter ribbon" to "Ink ribbon" to better reflect the actual content of the article. The new title is more comprehensive and inclusive, covering the use of ink ribbons in other devices as well as in typewriters. I have expanded the coverage of the article, added some illustrative photos, and added some references for the first time.