Citizen Printer

What are the uses of impact printers?

also what are the advantages and disadvantages of impact printers?

Impact printers work as the name suggests - they make a mark on the paper by firing a pin instead of squirting ink or heating up paper. usually in conjunction with an ink ribbon placed between paper and the print head. Advantages are that the ink ribbon lasts a long time and is re-usable (the printing fades rather than just stops), multiple copies can be printed at once from self-copying paper, and the printing is usually fast. (Supermarket till receipts used to be printed this way.), and cheap. The dis-advantage is noise. Incidently, the printing is usually only one or two colours. By using a ribbon containing a red and black ink strip, the red is obtained by changing the height of the head so that it impacts on the red side of the ribbon instead of the black.