Comment by MostlyStable
2 months ago
Previous discussions on hackernews (see this comment [0]) claim that the paper handling hardware is part of the problem. It's apparently quite difficult to do reliably (thus all the 90s jokes about paper jams) and all the known solutions are locked up under patent
I wonder if part of that problem could be solved by going back in time, and printing on something like the accordion-folded paper favored by dot-matrix printers, or even a full roll of 8.5 inch wide paper that then gets sliced into 11 inch long chunks after the ink is applied?
Then we just have to solve all the other problems :)
Truly high-speed printers do that.
Think of the printer that prints out all the Chase credit card statements for millions of customers. It uses a "roll to cut sheet system"
Example: https://offtechne.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Roll_to_Cut...
I kinda don't buy patents at this point. There were very decent printers in 90s and those have any patent expired already.