What would life be if we couldn’t print anything from our computer?
Despite the HUGE advancement we experience because of the Internet and the web, we will still be writing everything down manually on paper, making everything pretty useless without the printer. Yes it’s true that people now a days are starting to go paperless, but WHY couldn’t we go to it even before? Well, if your going to think about it, it’s because a lot of people still prefer to read on paper compared to a computer and maybe because papers are light and more compact compared to a laptop. It would be quite ridiculous to bring a laptop with you every time just to let someone read something. Don’t you think?
The inkjet, has actually pretty interesting history. While inkjet is often normally associated to Hewlett Packard, there actually a company in Japan who was also trying to invent such technology during that time - Canon. In the year 1867, William Thompson, invented and was given a patent for an apparatus called “Receiving or Recording Instruments for Electrical Telegraphers.” This printing apparatus uses electrostatic force to drop ink on paper. However, it prints things messily and expensively as well. The innovation behind the inkjet was quite simple. The problem the old inkjets were facing was solved by 2 factors: first, an improvement in the print head which could be control accurately; and second, engineers found out that using heat can help to control the flow of ink better than vibration.
The development of the inkjet was attributed to Hewlett Packard, specifically to a researcher named John Vaught. Having a picture of what an ideal inkjet should look like, Vaught and his team built a print head that could spit ink rapidly without clogging. The inspiration behind the development was the coffee percolator.
(Hewlett Packard from Google Images)
The widespread use of colour in computing during the mid-1990s changed everything. Just as Mr. Vaught had planned, adding colour capability to inkjets was the next logical step. Print heads with complementary colours of magenta, cyan and yellow were added to black ink, enabling printers to create a full range of colours. More specialised photo printers have also added various shades of the primary colours to produce ever more faithful reproductions. “We essentially took all the work of craftsmen in a printshop and put it in algorithms,” says John Meyer, a director at HP's laboratories. As computers became ever faster, those algorithms allowed prints to become sharper and ever more vibrant.
Today, the inkjet is no longer a cheap substitute for a laser printer, but a graphics machine in its own right. The average print head now contains more than 300 nozzles and is capable of producing images with a resolution of at least 1,200 by 1,200 dots per inch—more than the eye can resolve. The average machine can now fire ink at a blinding 14,000 dots per second, depositing more than 1m drops of ink on a square inch of paper. Most of the development work is now going into creating durable, light-fast inks to prevent pictures from fading. Meanwhile, new software is helping to produce clearer pictures by controlling the printing pixel by pixel.
Ultimately, the development of the inkjet printer underscores how lateral thinking can yield remarkably simple solutions to complex problems. Both Mr. Endo and Mr. Vaught, who have shared numerous industry awards in recognition of their accomplishments, displayed dogged determination and belief in their inventions, despite much internal resistance. But in doing so, they revolutionised the computer business and brought colour to people's lives.
References:
The Economist (2002): "Spitting Image". Economist.com.
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~scotch/innovation/inventing_injet.htm
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