The IBM 1403 line printer

Line printer

The line printer is a form of high speed impact printer in which one line of type is printed at a time. They are mostly associated with the early days of computing, but the technology is still in use...

 was introduced as part of the IBM 1401

IBM 1401

The IBM 1401 was a variable wordlength decimal computer that was announced by IBM on October 5, 1959. The first member of the highly successful IBM 1400 series, it was aimed at replacing electromechanical unit record equipment for processing data stored on punched cards...

 computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 in 1959 and had an especially long life in the IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 product line. The original model could print 600 lines of text per minute and could skip blank lines at up to 75 inches/second. The standard model had 120 print positions. An additional 12 positions were available as an option. A print chain with at least five copies of the character set spun horizontally in front of the ribbon and paper.