The Role of Output Devices in the Higher Education Courses of Cartography - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 37

(bulk printing), but finally the large speed laser printing replaced the old technol-
ogy. This technology probably didn't appear at that time in the cartographic
education, but nowadays it is widely thought when we want to present the evolution
of digital cartography and geographic information system.
Dot matrix printers were developed around 1970. The very first printers used 5*7
dot matrix to form the characters, later the 9*9 dot matrix became standard. In the
1970s and 1980s, dot matrix impact printers were generally considered the best
combination of expense and versatility, and until the 1990s they were by far the
most common form of printer used with personal computers. Early dot matrix
printers were notoriously loud during operation, a result of the typewriter-like
mechanism in the print head and they produced printouts of a distinctive
“computerized” quality (the quality of text printing was far from the real typewriter
text). Although the very first dot-matrix impact printers lacked the ability to print
computer-generated images it has changed soon and encouraged the PC users to
buy this relatively cheap output device. The speed and graphic quality was very
poor, but users had no other opportunity to print their documents, including maps.
This was also the first low-cost option for color printing (although they were also
9 pin dot color models). When the manufacturers wanted to improve the printing
quality of their models they invented a 24 pin dot matrix printer around 1985. The
print quality was not comparable for the actual models, but these were the first
printers allow the users to print color photographs (even such prints might take
some 10 min or more even in a small size). The color dot matrix printers had no
chance to become wide spread because a new technology, the inkjet was invented
and in some years this technology replaced the dot matrix printers especially on the
home market. The effect of color dot matrix printers in cartography was nearly
invisible due to the fact that only few manufacturers developed such models
(Apple, Citizen, Epson, Panasonic), and the print quality was really poor (printing
stripes remained visible on the paper) (Fig. 3.3 ). Some color dot matrix printer
models are still on the market, but only for printing receipts (Zable and Lee 1997 ).
The very first special output devices used in cartography was the pen plotter.
Compared to modern printers, pen plotters were very slow and cumbersome to use.
Users had to constantly worry about a pen running out of ink. If one pen ran dry at
the end of a plot, the entire plot had to be re-done which was very time consuming.
Plotters could only draw lines; they couldn't reproduce raster or photographic
images. Despite these limitations, the high resolution and color capability of pen
plotters made them the color hardcopy output device of choice until the late 1980s
especially in technical drawings and CAD graphics which consisted on simple lines
like cadastral maps. Only the inkjet technology has made pen plotters obsolete.
In a drum technology papers were fixed and pen is moved in a single axis track
and the paper itself moves on a cylindrical drum to add the other axis or dimension.
Where the paper was fixed on a flat surface and pens are moved to draw the image
was called a flatbed plotter. This type of plotters regularly can use several different
color pens to draw with.
CalComp was incorporated in 1958, it was one of the first companies in the
United States to market peripheral products designed specifically to work with