The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 31, 1984
Filed:
Aug. 11, 1983
William D Thorne, Wake Forest, NC (US);
International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Described, is a printing mechanism allowing full exploitation of the potential of dot matrix printing. Dot forming elements are mounted on a carrier for transport past an array of hammers located in front of media to be marked upon. The dots or carrier are impacted by the hammers to form dots on the medium. By appropriate control of motion of the printing medium and timing of the hammer impacts, a dot may be formed anywhere on the surface of the medium. This allows unlimited character font set generation as well as special character printing for enlarged font, miniaturized font, fast rough draft copy printing, the printing of ascenders and descenders for characters and for condensed or compacted printing. In addition, the mechanism permits an all points available graphics generation system and full control for variable vertical spacing of printed elements and of variable horizontal spacing of the printed elements. Variable print element shapes, grey tone graphics printing and multi-color additive or subtractive color processes are also facilitated.