【Fujitsu】 FACOM 521 and 641 High-Speed Printers

Completed in August 1960, the FACOM 521 was Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing Corporation (currently Fujitsu) first commercial high-speed printer to use the type drum system (Note). The company's early printers employed the type bar system, but the bars were fairly heavy and were raised and lowered discontinuously. And thus the limit on printing speed was about 100 lines per minute. On the other hand, there was a need for a printing speed of a few hundred or a few thousand lines per minute due to the improved performance of computers. In accordance with this need, Fuji Tsushinki Manufacturing Co. developed the type drum system as a new system. After a few rounds of prototyping, in 1960 they completed the FACOM 521 high-speed printer with a printing speed of 500 lines per minute. Subsequently they added various improvements and developed the FACOM 641 which increased printing speed to 800 lines per minute.

(Note) In the beginning, it was called the "type wheel system" or "type ring system". Its type drum was constructed by stacking 60 type rings which had 2 digits each , to build up 120 digits.

Specifications of FACOM 521 and 641High-Speed Printers
  FACOM 521 FACOM 641
Completion date August 1960 March 1964
Printing system Type drum system (type wheel system)
Printing speed 50 character types 500 line/min
100 character types 300 line/min
50 character types 800 line/min
100 character types 460 line/min
Character types 50 character types (*1): Numerals (10),Alphabetic letters (26),Symbols (13),Space (1)
100 character types: Numerals (10),Alphabetic letters (26),Symbols (15),Space (1),Blank (1),Katakana (47)
Number of printed characters 120 char/line
Connected systems FACOM 222P,FACOM 222A FACOM 222A,FACOM 241, FACOM 231

*1: Equipped with 2 character sets for high-speed printing.


FACOM 521 High-Speed PrinterTwo FACOM 521s connected to a FACOM 222 systemFACOM 641 High-Speed PrinterFACOM 641 connected to a FACOM 231 Systemtype ring (type wheel)