Editing Line printer (section)

{{short description|Impact printer that prints one entire line of text at a time}}
{{Redir|Bar printer|the similarly named type of printer|barcode printer}}
{{Redir|Wheel printer|the similarly named type of printer|Daisy wheel printer}}

{{More citations needed |date=February 2010}}
[[File:IBM line printer 1403.JPG|right|thumb|300px|[[IBM 1403]] line printer, the classic line printer of the [[Mainframe computer|mainframe]] era.]]

A '''line printer''' [[Printer (computing)|prints]] one entire line of text before advancing to another line.<ref>{{cite news |newspaper=The New York Times |title=Speedy Computer Printer Developed by Scan-Optics
|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/26/archives/speedy-computer-printer-developed-by-scanoptics.html
|date=August 26, 1971  |page=57 |quote=Scan‐Optics, Inc., of East Hartford, Conn., announced yesterday that it had developed a new high‐speed line printer for computers using a non‐impact technique.}}</ref> Most early line printers were 
[[printer (computing)#Impact printers|impact printers]].

Line printers are mostly associated with [[unit record equipment]] and the early days of digital computing, but the technology is still in use. Print speeds of 600 lines per minute<ref>{{cite web
|url=https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ibm/1620/A26-5730-2_1443_printer_for_1620.pdf
|series=IBM Systems Reference Library |title=IBM 1443 PRINTER for 1620/1710 Systems}}</ref> (approximately 10 pages per minute) were achieved in the 1950s, later increasing to as much as 1200 lpm. Line printers print a complete line at a time and have speeds in the range of 150 to 2500 lines per minute. 

Some types of impact line printers are [[#Drum printer|drum printers]], [[#Band printer|band-printers]], and [[#Chain printer|chain printers]]. Non-impact technologies have also been used, e.g., [[thermal printing|thermal line printers]] were popular in the 1970s and 1980s,<ref>{{cite web| url = http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/HP9830A.html| title = HP9866 thermal line printer}}</ref> some inkjet and laser printers produce output a line or a page at a time.