golf ball printer
(foldoc) | IBM 2741
golf ball printer
A slow, letter-quality printing device and
terminal based on the IBM Selectric typewriter. The
print head was a little sphere resembling a golf ball, bearing
reversed embossed images of 88 different characters arranged
on four parallels of latitude; one could change the font by
changing the golf ball. The device communicated at 134.5 bits
per second, half duplex. When the computer transmitted, it
physically locked the keyboard.
This was the technology that enabled APL to use a
non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard
character set. This put it 10 years ahead of its time -
where it stayed, firmly rooted, for the next 20, until
character displays gave way to programmable bit-mapped
devices with the flexibility to support other character sets.
(2006-08-04)
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