Although they are no longer being manufactured, it is not entirely uncommon to still find daisy-wheel printers being used or offered for sale. Such printer equipment offers some advantages, but also has a few noteworthy drawbacks.

One main advantage of using a daisy wheel printer is the high print quality, which is superior to that of dot matrix units and has been compared with that of laser printer equipment. They also enable the font to be changed by attaching a different printwheel, which allows varied type styles to be used in computer programs that do not have font capabilities.

Such printers are useful for filling in the blanks on printed forms as well. Another advantage of these printers is that they can be purchased used very inexpensively. Ribbons for a daisy wheel (or dot matrix) printer are often less expensive than inkjet ink.

However, the daisy wheel printer also has some disadvantages. It prints relatively slowly, and makes more noise than most inkjet models. They also cannot be used to print graphics, unless the images are made up of text characters. It can be complicated to connect and use some daisywheel printers with recent computers. They generally weigh about twenty to thirty-five pounds.

Printing on labels is one of the tasks that daisy wheel printers are considered preferable for; some people like to use them for envelopes as well. Brands which have produced daisy wheel printers include Panasonic, Atari, Radio Shack, TEC, Commodore, and Brother.

MODEL-SPECIFIC LINKS

Atari 1027	Tandy DWP-520
Diablo 630	Coleco Adam