International Business Machines Corporation

William M Schuller

James Ronald Booth

Robert A Kolpek

Lloyd Phillip Young

Charles S Aldrich

Dan M Howell

A method of and apparatus for proportional ribbon (23) tracking on a printer (20), the printer (20) including a carrier (30) upon which implements of printing, for example the printwheel (25), ribbon (23) and hammer (28) are all mounted for translation opposite a platen (21). Ribbon lift mechanism is provided for effecting elevation of a ribbon (23) to multiple predetermined positions or tracks (1-10) (FIG. 3B) intermediate a printwheel (25) and a platen (21) so that indicia or character may be printed on print receiving medium (22) held thereby. In essence, an input means (11) receives a character to be printed. The microprocessor (13), in conjunction with the ROM (15), characterizes the character in accordance with a predetermined plurality of characteristics. In accordance with ribbon lift and feed algorithms, a particular characteristic of the character to be printed is added to a position on the ribbon upon which at least one prior character has been printed. In this manner a new print position is determined. Thereafter, the new track print position is outputted to the ribbon lift and feed means for effecting elevation of said ribbon (23) to one of a multiple of predetermined positions to thereby approximately maximize the number of predetermined positions of said ribbon with characters thereon which may be printed without character overlap.

Proportional vertical and horizontal ribbon tracking for impact printers

A combined communicating typewriter/dictation system which utilizes a common modem as an interface between an electronic typewriter, a mass media recorder and a communications line. The modem replaces digital logic and audio tones are recorded on the mass media recorder instead of digital tones. When the system is in a local mode, the digital keystroke signals from the typewriter are modulated by the modem and recorded by the mass media recorder. In a communications mode, the recorded keystroke signals are demodulated and then remodulated before transmission over the communications line to eliminate noise and other extraneous signals that tend to increase the error rate of the transmitted signals. When data is received by the system for storage on the mass media recorder, the transmitted data is demodulated and then remodulated by the modem to eliminate noise from the transmitted signal. In both communication paths, the analog signal input to the modem is processed twice before it is either forwarded to the mass media recorder or to the communications line. In addition to the foregoing recording functions, the mass media recorder can also be utilized to record and/or playback audio information. The dual utilization of the modem and the mass media recorder results in a low cost system without sacrificing much in the way of recording error rate.

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Lexington, KY, United States of America

William M Schuller