Wiredot printer

Manufactured in	1968
Manufactured by	Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Owner	Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd.
Location of historical materials	1-1 Tachita, Shono, Fukushima-shi, Fukushima, 960-2196, Japan
Visitor information	Generally confidential (Consultation available)
Contact	OKI Proserve Co., Ltd. Tel.+81-24-594-2251

In 1968, at a time when there was no such method to store the pattern of characters by electrical means as done in today's printers, technology to express characters as an assembly of dots was groundbreaking.

OKI's wiredot printer can print a total of 128 character patters and each character consists of 7 dots (vertical) x 5 dots (horizontal). It consists of a steel sheet, so-called character generator (CG) with holes combined that can express 128 characters, and a guide pipe for the 7 dots (vertical) x 5 dots that represents 1 character.

When printing on a piece of paper, CG was moved mechanically to each of the characters' individually defined position. The edge of the wires, 7 dots (vertical) x 5 dots (horizontal) totaling 35, which was placed opposite the stamping, was pushed to the CG. Wires that hit the CG without the pores, bolted out and this created the dots.

Records show that the compact and light-weight wiredot printer was used for automotives; many orders were received from governmental agencies.