Ink Cartridges – a Brief History
16 June 2009If you compare the inkjet printer in use today to those that were launched some twenty years ago, you will find that they have indeed come a long way since then. Though they arrived in the stores in the 1980s; it was way back in the 1970s, that printer companies recognized the fact that the ink based printers were the way forward and this technology would be revolutionary in nature. They began the process of developing printers and printer cartridges. The initial challenge for the company was not only to concentrate on quality but also on affordability. Siemens invented a popular inkjet printer model in 1977 and it became quite popular amongst businesses and organizations. The biggest benefits of this printer were that it sprayed ink only when necessary and were not very expensive.
A Few Challenges
A major challenge faced by printer developers with regards to this type of printers was the fact that the flow of ink from the print head to the page needed to be controlled. This required cutting edge technological research not only in terms of the printers but also the printer cartridges. Initially the dried ink, clogged the printer head, and even the IBM strategy to use electrically charged droplets for coating the pages with ink was not successful and lacked consumer appeal. This challenge was tackled by two companies namely Hewlett-Packard and Canon. They introduced the inkjet printer in the market that used liquid ink, held in cartridges. These became vastly popular and this technology is still in use today.
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