golf ball printer

1 definition found

golf ball printer - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  IBM 2741
  golf ball printer
  
     <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)