An older class of heavy-duty impact printer used primarily in data centers and mainframe computing. Instead of printing character by character, it uses a rotating drum, chain, or band of metal characters to strike an inked ribbon across the entire width of the page at once, allowing for extremely fast output of continuous-feed paper.
Heard on the job
The line printer is chewing through that box of green-bar paper for the overnight payroll run.
Related terms
Band printer
An early, high-speed impact printer that uses a rotating metal band of characters.
Pinfeed
A paper-handling mechanism that uses small sprocketed wheels to advance continuous paper with punched margins.
Dot matrix printer
An impact printing device that forms characters by striking an ink ribbon with a grid of tiny metal pins.