One of Columbia's Diablo printer about 1980
This was the device used for quality printing in the 1970s. It looks like a
typewriter (and could be used as one), but in reality it was a powerful
computer terminal, capable of responding to all sorts of host-generated
commands. To illustrate, the SCRIBE document preparation system was capable
of producing output for the Diablo, which, when passed through a locally
written spooler program (on the DEC-20), could move the paper up and down in
precise increments and even handle the mounting of different print wheels on
the fly; for example the regular ASCII wheel and a technical wheel with math
symbols, allowing the printing of complex mathematical expressions, e.g. big
integral or summation signs, tall parentheses, etc, accomplished not only
with the different print wheels, but also precise host-controlled
positioning of the paper and print head, in what was considered publication
quality. As I recall the spooler printed each page that required two print
wheels in just two passes, the first for ASCII and the second for symbols,
"rewinding" the page after the first pass. The CUCCA nuwsletter was printed
on the Diablo for about 10 years, until laser printers came along. Quite a
few PhD theses were printed the a Diablo shown above that was available to
all comers in the SSIO Area.
Trivia: Scribe files destined for Diablo printing were given the
".POD" extension, for Prince Of Darkness.
