 | ||
The IBM 6640 printer was one of the world's first office ink jet printers. It was originally announced as the 46/40 but later renamed as 6640, as part of the Office System/6 word processing range in 1976.
Documents to be printed were first prepared on either on magnetic cards by a Magnetic Card Selectric typewriter, or an Office System/6 console. Magnetic card stacks were loaded via a reader attached to the left side of the printer and the device could also communicate via BSC or SDLC protocols. A model of 6640 was without a Magnetic Card Deck but was hard-wired to an Office System/6 console for direct printing.
The printer itself had a large envelope drawer, and two paper drawers, each of which could handle a stack of paper up to approx. three inches thick, and up to 17 inches by 17 inches. Optional font cards were available, and installed on the planar located on the right side of the printer. Black ink was sprayed out of a single nozzle, broken into drops, and each drop was deflected by electromagnetic fields to form individual letters or symbols. Any drops not required to generate a letter were fed back into the ink system via the "gutter" for re-use. For example, a drop used for printing a letter was immediately followed by several "guard drops" that were deliberately deflected down into the gutter so as to avoid slip streaming.