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..means of achieving typewriter quality computer output. Better looking than a dot matrix printer, but debatably louder.

The daisy wheel is simply a circular plastic device that contains many flexible arms, each with a single character on the end of it. The wheel is spun around to the correct letter, number or symbol, and then a hammer will strike the character against an ink ribbon which in-turn leaves an imprint on a piece of paper. While these printers produced much better quality output than a dot matrix printer, they also only were able to put out about 8-20 characters per second. With the widespread availability of ink jet printers and laser printers, the daisy wheel printer has become quite obsolete.

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