A Daisy Wheel Printer is a type of impact printer that was popular in the 1970s and 1980s. It gets its name from the daisy-shaped wheel inside it, which contains all the characters that the printer can produce. Here’s a brief overview of how it works

Daisy Wheel Structure The printer has a wheel that looks like a daisy, with each petal containing a raised character or symbol. When a particular character needs to be printed, the corresponding petal on the wheel is positioned in front of the paper.

Impact Mechanism Once the wheel is in position, a hammer or another impact mechanism strikes the wheel, forcing the chosen character against the ribbon and then onto the paper. This impact creates the printed character on the page.

Rotation and Positioning The wheel rotates to align the correct character with the paper. It also moves horizontally to print across the page line by line.

Limitations Daisy wheel printers were known for their high-quality text output but were limited to a set number of fonts and character sets, which were fixed by the wheel’s design. They were not suitable for printing graphics or complex layouts.

Usage Despite their limitations, they were valued for their ability to produce clean, legible text and were widely used in offices and for personal documents before the advent of more versatile printers like laser and inkjet printers.

Overall, daisy wheel printers were an important step in the evolution of printing technology, offering improved quality over earlier types of impact printers.