In 1977, NEC announced the N7370 high-speed page printer, which was capable of kanji (Chinese character) printing, and the N7380 page printer, which was the fastest in Japan with a speed of 21,000line/min.
This printer used the xerographic system based on laser beam exposure.
Formats for forms were provided beforehand in film form, or on floppy disk, enabling simultaneous printing with a film overlay.
The N7370 enabled printing of alphanumeric and kana characters, as well as 4000 kanji and hiragana, covering all the characters in JIS Level I, which was established later (1978). As an option, the character set could be expanded to a maximum of 8000 characters.
The N7380 could only print alphanumeric, kana and some other characters, but it had a high printing speed of 21,000line/min with a line pitch of 12line/inch.
Both machines were designed for channel connection with a mainframe (NEC's ACOS system) via a controller, but they also had a magnetic tape unit for data input and were commercialized as independent printing systems controlled by a minicomputer.
| Model name | N7370 | N7380 |
|---|---|---|
| Printing system | Laser beam exposure, Xerographic transfer | |
| Resolution (printed dot density) |
- | Vertical144/inch,Horizontal180/inch |
| Character types |
|
|
| Form overlay | Film overlay and overlay using format and characters from floppy disk | |
| Paper | Continuous folding ordinary paper with sprocket holes (width=6.5–15.8 inch) | |
| Paper feed speed | - | 74cm/s |
| Printing speed(line/min) | - 7,000 (with 8line/inch) 5,250 (with 6line/inch) |
21,000 (with 12line/inch) 14,000 (with 8line/inch) 10,500 (with 6line/inch) |
| External dimensions(mm) | 2,440(W)×943(D)×1,500(H) | |
| Weight(kg) | 1,200 | 1,100 |
| Announcement date | July 1977 | December 1977 |
