Spark printer
Encyclopedia
Computer printer
In computing, a printer is a peripheral which produces a text or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as local peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable or, in most new printers, a...
which uses a special paper
Paper
Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....
coated with a layer of aluminium
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
over a black backing, which is printed on by using a pulsing current onto the paper via two styli that move across on a moving belt at high speed. They were introduced in the late 1960s. Such devices were sometimes incorrectly referred to as thermal printer
Thermal printer
A thermal printer produces a printed image by selectively heating coated thermochromic paper, or thermal paper as it is commonly known, when the paper passes over the thermal print head. The coating turns black in the areas where it is heated, producing an image...
s (which is in fact a different technology.)
Spark printing was a simple and inexpensive technology. The print quality was relatively poor, but at a time when conventional printers cost hundreds of pounds, spark printers' sub-£100 price was a major selling point. The other major downside is that they can only print onto special metallised paper; such paper is no longer readily available.
Models
The Sinclair ZX PrinterZX Printer
The Sinclair ZX Printer is a spark printer which was produced by Sinclair Research for its ZX81 home computer. It was launched in 1981, with a recommended retail price of £49.95....
, introduced in November 1981 for the low-end ZX81
Sinclair ZX81
The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...
(and later ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
) home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s used the spark printing method, and retailed for £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
49.95.
In the early 1980s, Casio
Casio
is a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its electronic products, such as calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches...
released a "Mini Electro Printer", the FP-10 for some of their scientific calculator
Scientific calculator
A scientific calculator is a type of electronic calculator, usually but not always handheld, designed to calculate problems in science, engineering, and mathematics...
s.
The Hewlett Packard 9120A, which attached to the top of the HP-9100A/B calculator, also used the sparking technique.