A couple of weeks ago I remarked that a new crop of inexpensive ink jet printers has virtually driven dot matrix printers from the market. That brought calls and letters from some readers who said ...

The dot matrix printer uses one or two columns of dot hammers that are moved across the paper. The hammers rapidly press the ribbon into the paper, which causes the ink to be deposited.

For as long as there have been personal computers, computer enthusiasts have been told that when it comes to printers, they can’t have their cake and eat it too.Either you used a dot matrix ...

Dot matrix printers, despite being mostly obsolete, have a somewhat vintage aesthetic that plenty of people still find desirable and recreate them in plenty of other ways as well, like this 3D ...

At the time, such printers were plentiful and cheap. But by the late 1990s dot matrix printers were largely superseded by the technologically superior laser and ink jet printers.

That seems to be the case for dot matrix printers, clunky and noisy pieces of machinery that major U.S. airlines, such as American and Delta, have continued to use for years.