Magnetic printer using perpendicular recording

Within the past years, many attempts have been made to make magnetic printing a viable alternative to the electrophotographic (xerographic) process. Most of them have tried to make use of available magnetic components such as longitudinal recording heads and/or magnetic tapes. A different approach, developped by the CII-Honeywell Bull Non Impact Printer Engineering at Belfort, France, has resulted in a magnetic parallel printer which eliminates most of the disadvantages suffered by both the Xerographic process and the magnetic tape approach, i.e. the need to continuously change or regenerate the printing medium when it is a photoconductive material or a magnetic material. The key point here is the use of a solid mechanical magnetic drum. This has been made possible by the development of a new type of magnetic recording head. The main heads features are (a) Perpendicular Recording, (b) Closed loop flux path, (c) Multiturn Capability, (d) Multiplexed controls, (e) Ability to be packed at high density. Actually, these perpendicular heads can be seen as the printing field counterpart of the growing interest for high density perpendicular recording that presently takes place in the Data Recording field.