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Dot matrix printing

Dot matrix printing, sometimes called impact matrix printing, is a computer printing process in which ink is applied to a surface using a relatively low-resolution dot matrix for layout. Dot matrix printers are a type of impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires and typically use a print head that moves back and forth or in an up-and-down motion on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers. Unlike typewriters or line printers that use a similar print mechanism, a dot matrix printer can print arbitrary patterns and not just specific characters.

The perceived quality of dot matrix printers depends on the vertical and horizontal resolution and the ability of the printer to overlap adjacent dots. 9-pin and 24-pin are common; this specifies the number of pins in a specific vertically aligned space. With 24-pin printers, the horizontal movement can slightly overlap dots, producing visually superior output (near letter quality or NLQ), usually at the cost of speed. Dot matrix printing is typically distinguished from non-impact methods, such as inkjet, thermal, or laser printing, which also use a bitmap to represent the printed work. These other technologies can support higher dot resolutions and print more quickly, with less noise. Unlike other technologies, impact printers can print on multi-part forms, allowing multiple copies to be made simultaneously, often on paper of different colors. They can also employ endless printing using continuous paper fanfolded with perforations so pages can be easily torn from each other.

History
In 1925, Rudolf Hell invented the Hellschreiber, an early facsimile-like dot matrix–based teletypewriter device, patented in 1929.

Between 1952 and 1954 Fritz Karl Preikschat filed five patent applications for his teletype writer 7 stylus 35 dot matrix aka PKT printer, a dot matrix teletypewriter built between 1954 and 1956 in Germany. Like the earlier Hellschreiber, it still used electromechanical means of coding and decoding, but it used a start-stop method (asynchronous transmission) rather than synchronous transmission for communication. In 1956, while he was employed at Telefonbau und Normalzeit GmbH (TuN, later called Tenovis), the device was offered to the Deutsche Bundespost (German Post Office), which did not show interest. When Preikschat emigrated to the US in 1957 he sold the rights to utilize the applications in any countries (except for the USA) to TuN. The prototype was also shown to General Mills in 1957. An improved transistorized design became the basis for a portable dot matrix facsimile machine, which was prototyped and evaluated for military use by Boeing around 1966–1967. IBM marketed its first dot matrix printer in 1957, the same year that the dye-sublimation printer entered the market.

In 1968, the Japanese manufacturer OKI introduced its first serial impact dot matrix printer (SIDM), the OKI Wiredot. The printer supported a character generator for 128 characters with a print matrix of 7 × 5. It was aimed at governmental, financial, scientific and educational markets. For this achievement, OKI received an award from the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) in 2013.

In 1970 Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduced an impact dot matrix printer, the LA30, as did Centronics (then of Hudson, New Hampshire): the Centronics 101. The search for a reliable printer mechanism led it to develop a relationship with Brother Industries, Ltd of Japan, and the sale of Centronics-badged Brother printer mechanisms equipped with a Centronics print head and Centronics electronics. Unlike Digital, Centronics concentrated on the low-end line printer marketplace with their distinctive units. In the process, they designed the parallel electrical interface that was to become standard on most printers until it began to be replaced by the Universal Serial Bus (USB) in the late 1990s.

DEC was a major vendor, albeit with a focus on use with their PDP minicomputer line. Their LA30 30 character/second (CPS) dot matrix printer, the first of many, was introduced in 1970. In the mid-1980s, dot-matrix printers were dropping in price, and began to outsell daisywheel printers, due to their higher speed and versatility. The Apple ImageWriter was a popular consumer dot matrix printer in the 1980s until the mid-1990s.

In the 1970s and 1980s, dot matrix impact printers were generally considered the best combination of cost and versatility, and until the 1990s were by far the most common form of printer used with personal and home computers.

Increased pincount of the printhead from 7, 8, 9 or 12 pins to 18, 24, 27, or 36 permitted superior print quality, which was necessary for success in Asian markets to print legible CJKV characters. Epson's 24-pin LQ-series rose to become the new de facto standard, at 24/180 inch (per pass – 7.5 lpi). Not only could a 24-pin printer lay down a denser dot-pattern in a single pass, it could simultaneously cover a larger area and print more quickly. Although the text quality of a 24-pin was still visibly inferior to a true letter-quality printer such as a daisy wheel or laser printer, print quality was greatly superior to a 9-pin printer. As manufacturing costs declined, 24-pin printers gradually replaced 9-pin printers.

By the dawn of the 1990s, inkjet printers became more common as PC printers.

Design

Dot matrix printing uses a print head that moves back-and-forth, or in an up-and-down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like the print mechanism on a typewriter. However, unlike a typewriter or daisy wheel printer, letters are drawn out of a dot matrix, and thus, varied fonts and arbitrary graphics can be produced.

Each dot is produced by a tiny metal rod, also called a "wire" or "pin", which is driven forward by the power of a tiny electromagnet or solenoid, either directly or through small levers (pawls). Facing the ribbon and the paper is a small guide plate named ribbon mask holder or protector, sometimes also called butterfly for its typical shape. It is pierced with holes to serve as guides for the pins. The plate may be made of hard plastic or an artificial jewel such as sapphire or ruby.

The portion of the printer that contains the pin is called the print head. When running the printer, it generally prints one line of text at a time. The printer head is attached to a metal bar that ensures correct alignment, but horizontal positioning is controlled by a band that attaches to sprockets on two wheels at each side which is then driven with an electric motor. This band may be made of stainless steel, phosphor bronze or beryllium copper alloys, nylon or various synthetic materials with a twisted nylon core to prevent stretching. Actual position can be found out either by dead count using a stepper motor, rotary encoder attached to one wheel or a transparent plastic band with markings that is read by an optical sensor on the printer head (common on inkjets).

Because the printing involves mechanical pressure, dot matrix printers can create carbon copies and carbonless copies. Although nearly all inkjet, thermal, and laser printers also print closely spaced dots rather than continuous lines or characters, it is not customary to call them dot matrix printers.

Dot matrix printers have one of the lowest printing costs per page.

They are able to use fanfold continuous paper with tractor holes.

Dot matrix printers create noise when the pins or typeface strike the ribbon to the paper, and sound-damping enclosures may have to be used in quiet environments.

They can only print lower-resolution graphics, with limited color performance, limited quality, and lower speeds compared to non-impact printers.

Variations

The common serial dot matrix printers use a horizontally moving print head. The print head can be thought of featuring a single vertical column of seven or more pins approximately the height of a character box. In reality, the pins are arranged in up to four vertically or/and horizontally slightly displaced columns in order to increase the dot density and print speed through interleaving without causing the pins to jam. Thereby, up to 48 pins can be used to form the characters of a line while the print head moves horizontally. The printing speed of serial dot matrix printers with moving heads varies from 30 to 1550 characters per second (cps).

In a considerably different configuration, so called line dot matrix printers use a fixed print head almost as wide as the paper path utilizing a horizontal line of thousands of pins for printing. Sometimes two horizontally slightly displaced rows are used to improve the effective dot density through interleaving. While still line-oriented, these printers for the professional heavy-duty market effectively print a whole line at once while the paper moves forward below the print head. Line matrix printers are capable of printing much more than 1000 cps, resulting in a throughput of up to 800 pages per hour.

A variation on the dot matrix printer was the cross hammer dot printer, patented by Seikosha in 1982. The smooth cylindrical roller of a conventional printer was replaced by a spinning, fluted cylinder. The print head was a simple hammer, with a vertical projecting edge, operated by an electromagnet. Where the vertical edge of the hammer intersected the horizontal flute of the cylinder, compressing the paper and ribbon between them, a single dot was marked on the paper. Characters were built up of multiple dots.

DEC
Unlike the LA30's 80-column, uppercase-only 5 x 7 dot matrix, DEC's product line grew. New models included:
 * LA36 (1974): supported upper and lower case, with up to 132 columns of text (also 30 CPS)
 * LA34: a lower-cost alternative to the LA36
 * LA38: an LA34 with more features
 * LA180: 180 CPS
 * LS120: 120 CPS
 * LA120: 180 CPS (and some advanced features)
 * LA12: a portable terminal – the DECwriter Correspondent

LA30
The DECwriter LA30 was a 30 character per second dot matrix printing terminal introduced in 1970 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, Massachusetts

It printed 80 columns of uppercase-only 7 × 5 dot matrix characters across a unique-sized paper. The printhead was driven by a stepper motor and the paper was advanced by a noisy solenoid ratchet drive. The LA30 was available with both a parallel interface (LA30-P) and a serial interface (LA30-S); however, the serial LA30 required the use of fill characters during the carriage-return. In 1972, a receive-only variation named LA30A became available.

LA36
The LA30 was followed in 1974 by the LA36, which achieved far greater commercial success, becoming for a time the standard dot matrix computer terminal. The LA36 used the same print head as the LA30 but could print on forms of any width up to 132 columns of mixed-case output on standard green bar fanfold paper. The carriage was moved by a much-more-capable servo drive using a DC electric motor and an optical encoder / tachometer. The paper was moved by a stepper motor. The LA36 was only available with a serial interface but unlike the earlier LA30, no fill characters were required. This was possible because, while the printer never communicated at faster than 30 characters per second, the mechanism was actually capable of printing at 60 characters per second. During the carriage return period, characters were buffered for subsequent printing at full speed during a catch-up period. The two-tone buzz produced by 60-character-per-second catch-up printing followed by 30-character-per-second ordinary printing was a distinctive feature of the LA36, quickly copied by many other manufacturers well into the 1990s. Most efficient dot matrix printers used this buffering technique.

Digital technology later broadened the basic LA36 line into a wide variety of dot matrix printers.

LA50
The DEC LA50 was designed to be a "compact, dot matrix" printer. When in graphic mode (as opposed to text mode), the printhead can generate graphic images. When in (bitmap) graphics mode, the LA50 can receive and print Sixel graphics format.

Centronics 101
The Centronics 101 (introduced 1970) was highly innovative and affordable at its inception. Some selected specifications:
 * Print speed: 165 characters per second
 * Weight: 155 pounds (70.3 kg)
 * Size: 27 ½" W x 11 ¼" H x 19 ¼ D (approx. 70 cm x 29 cm x 49 cm)
 * Shipping: 200 pounds (approx. 91 kg), wooden crate, unpacked by removal of 36 screws
 * Characters: 62, 10 numeric, 26 upper case and 26 special characters (no lower case)
 * Character size: 10 characters per inch (10 "pitch")
 * Line spacing: 6 lines per inch (6 LPI)
 * Vertical control: punched tape reader for top of form and vertical tab
 * Forms thickness: original plus four copies
 * Interfaces: Centronics parallel, optional RS-232 serial

IBM 5103
The IBM 5103 was the only IBM printer that could be attached to the IBM 5100, an early day portable computer. Printing was 8 DPI, 10 pitch, 6 LPI, and capable of printing bidirectionally from a 128 character set. Two models were offered: 80 and 120 characters per second.

Near Letter Quality (NLQ)
Near Letter Quality mode—informally specified as almost good enough to be used in a business letter —endowed dot-matrix printers with a simulated typewriter-like quality. By using multiple passes of the carriage, and higher dot density, the printer could increase the effective resolution. In 1985, The New York Times described the use of "near letter-quality, or NLQ" as "just a neat little bit of hype" but acknowledged that they "really show their stuff in the area of fonts, print enhancements and graphics."

NLQ printers could generally be set to print in "draft mode", in which case a single pass of the print head per line would be used. This produced lower quality print at much higher output speed.

PC usage
In 1985, PC Magazine wrote "for the average personal computer user dot matrix remains the most workable choice". At the time, IBM sold Epson's MX-80 as their IBM 5152.

Another technology, inkjet printing, which uses the razor and blades business model (give away the razor handle, make money on the razor blade) has reduced the value of the low cost for the printer: "a price per milliliter on par with liquid gold" for the ink/toner.

Personal computers
In June 1978, the Epson TX-80/TP-80, an 8-pin dot-matrix printer mainly used for the Commodore PET computer, was released. This and its successor, the 9-pin MX-80/MP-80 (introduced in 1979–1980), sparked the popularity of impact printers in the personal computer market. The MX-80 combined affordability with good-quality text output (for its time). Early impact printers (including the MX) were notoriously loud during operation, a result of the hammer-like mechanism in the print head. The MX-80 even inspired the name of a noise rock band. The MX-80's low dot density (60 dpi horizontal, 72 dpi vertical) produced printouts of a distinctive "computerized" quality. When compared to the crisp typewriter quality of a daisy-wheel printer, the dot-matrix printer's legibility appeared especially bad. In office applications, output quality was a serious issue, as the dot-matrix text's readability would rapidly degrade with each photocopy generation.

PC software
Initially, third-party printer enhancement software offered a quick fix to the quality issue. General strategies were:
 * doublestrike (print each line twice), and
 * double-density mode (slow the print head to allow denser and more precise dot placement).

Some newer dot-matrix impact printers could reproduce bitmap images via "dot-addressable" capability. In 1981, Epson offered a retrofit EPROM kit called Graftrax to add this to many early MX series printers. Banners and signs produced with software that used this ability, such as Broderbund's Print Shop, became ubiquitous in offices and schools throughout the 1980s.

As carriage speed increased and dot density increased (from 60 dpi up to 240 dpi), with some adding color printing, additional typefaces allowed the user to vary the text appearance of printouts. Proportional-spaced fonts allowed the printer to imitate the non-uniform character widths of a typesetter, and also darker printouts. 'User-downloadable fonts' gave until the printer was powered off or soft-reset. The user could embed up to two NLQ custom typefaces in addition to the printer's built-in (ROM) typefaces.

Contemporary use
The desktop impact printer was gradually replaced by the inkjet printer. When Hewlett-Packard's patents expired on steam-propelled photolithographically produced ink-jet heads, the inkjet mechanism became available to the printer industry. For applications that did not require impact (e.g. carbon-copy printing), the inkjet was superior in nearly all respects: comparatively quiet operation, faster print speed, and output quality almost as good as a laser printer. By 1995, inkjet technology had surpassed dot matrix impact technology in the mainstream market and relegated dot matrix to niche applications.

, dot matrix impact technology remains in use in devices and applications such as:
 * Cash registers,
 * ATMs,
 * Banking, passbook and cashier's checks,
 * Time cards and parking stubs,
 * Multi-layer contracts for signature,
 * Fire alarm systems,
 * Point-of-sale terminals,
 * British and Irish fire stations for turnout sheets,
 * Applications requiring continuous output on fan-fold paper.

Thermal printing is gradually supplanting them in some of these applications, but full-size dot-matrix impact printers are still used to print multi-part stationery. For example, dot matrix impact printers are still used at bank tellers and auto repair shops, and other applications where use of tractor feed paper is desirable such as data logging and aviation. Most of these printers now come with USB interfaces as a standard feature to facilitate connections to modern computers without legacy ports.

title: Dot matrix printing


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Funicular

A funicular is a type of cable railway system that connects points along a railway track laid on a steep slope. The system is characterized by two counterbalanced carriages (also called cars or trains) permanently attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable, which is looped over a pulley at the upper end of the track. The result of such a configuration is that the two carriages move synchronously: as one ascends, the other descends at an equal speed. This feature distinguishes funiculars from inclined elevators, which have a single car that is hauled uphill.

The term funicular derives from the Latin word, the diminutive of , meaning 'rope'.

Operation
In a funicular, both cars are permanently connected to the opposite ends of the same cable, known as a haul rope; this haul rope runs through a system of pulleys at the upper end of the line. If the railway track is not perfectly straight, the cable is guided along the track using sheaves – unpowered pulleys that simply allow the cable to change direction. While one car is pulled upwards by one end of the haul rope, the other car descends the slope at the other end. Since the weight of the two cars is counterbalanced (except for the weight of passengers), no lifting force is required to move them; the engine only has to lift the cable itself and the excess passengers, and supply the energy lost to friction by the cars' wheels and the pulleys.

For passenger comfort, funicular carriages are often (although not always) constructed so that the floor of the passenger deck is horizontal, and not necessarily parallel to the sloped track.

In some installations, the cars are also attached to a second cable – bottom towrope – which runs through a pulley at the bottom of the incline. In these designs, one of the pulleys must be designed as a tensioning wheel to avoid slack in the ropes. One advantage of such an installation is the fact that the weight of the rope is balanced between the carriages; therefore, the engine no longer needs to use any power to lift the cable itself. This practice is used on funiculars with slopes below 6%, funiculars using sledges instead of carriages, or any other case where it is not ensured that the descending car is always able to pull out the cable from the pulley in the station on the top of the incline. It is also used in systems where the engine room is located at the lower end of the track (such as the upper half of the Great Orme Tramway) – in such systems, the cable that runs through the top of the incline is still necessary to prevent the carriages from coasting down the incline.

Cable drive

In most modern funiculars, neither of the two carriages is equipped with an engine of its own. Instead, the propulsion is provided by an electric motor in the engine room (typically at the upper end of the track); the motor is linked via a speed-reducing gearbox to a large pulley – a drive bullwheel – which then controls the movement of the haul rope using friction. Some early funiculars were powered in the same way, but using steam engines or other types of motor. The bullwheel has two grooves: after the first half turn around it the cable returns via an auxiliary pulley. This arrangement has the advantage of having twice the contact area between the cable and the groove, and returning the downward-moving cable in the same plane as the upward-moving one. Modern installations also use high friction liners to enhance the friction between the bullwheel grooves and the cable.

For emergency and service purposes two sets of brakes are used at the engine room: the emergency brake directly grips the bullwheel, and the service brake is mounted at the high speed shaft of the gear. In case of an emergency the cars are also equipped with spring-applied, hydraulically opened rail brakes.

The first funicular caliper brakes which clamp each side of the crown of the rail were invented by the Swiss entrepreneurs Franz Josef Bucher and Josef Durrer and implemented at the Stanserhorn funicular, opened in 1893. The Abt rack and pinion system was also used on some funiculars for speed control or emergency braking.

Water counterbalancing

Many early funiculars were built using water tanks under the floor of each car, which were filled or emptied until just sufficient imbalance was achieved to allow movement, and a few such funiculars still exist and operate in the same way. The car at the top of the hill is loaded with water until it is heavier than the car at the bottom, causing it to descend the hill and pull up the other car. The water is drained at the bottom, and the process repeats with the cars exchanging roles. The movement is controlled by a brakeman using the brake handle of the rack and pinion system engaged with the rack mounted between the rails.

The Bom Jesus funicular built in 1882 near Braga, Portugal is one of the extant systems of this type. Another example, the Fribourg funicular in Fribourg, Switzerland built in 1899, is of particular interest as it utilizes waste water, coming from a sewage plant at the upper part of the city.

Some funiculars of this type were later converted to electrical power. For example, the Giessbachbahn in the Swiss canton of Bern, opened in 1879, was originally powered by water ballast. In 1912 its energy provision was replaced by a hydraulic engine powered by a Pelton turbine. In 1948 this in turn was replaced by an electric motor.

Track layout

There are three main rail layouts used on funiculars; depending on the system, the track bed can consist of four, three, or two rails.

 * Early funiculars were built to the four-rail layout, with two separate parallel tracks and separate station platforms at both ends for each vehicle. The two tracks are laid with sufficient space between them for the two carriages to pass at the midpoint. While this layout requires the most land area, it is also the only layout that allows both tracks to be perfectly straight, requiring no sheaves on the tracks to keep the cable in place. Examples of four-rail funiculars are the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and most cliff railways in the United Kingdom.
 * In three-rail layouts, the middle rail is shared by both carriages, while each car runs on a different outer rail. To allow the two cars to pass at the halfway point, the middle rail must briefly split into two, forming a passing loop. Such systems are narrower and require less rail to construct than four-rail systems; however, they still require separate station platforms for each vehicle.
 * In a two-rail layout, both cars share the entire track except at the passing loop in the middle. This layout is the narrowest of all and needs only a single platform at each station (though sometimes two platforms are built: one for boarding, one for alighting). However, the required passing loop is more complex and costly to build, since special turnout systems must be in place to ensure that each car always enters the correct track at the loop. Furthermore, if a rack for braking is used, that rack can be mounted higher in three-rail and four-rail layouts, making it less sensitive to choking in snowy conditions compared to the two-rail layout.

Some funicular systems use a mix of different track layouts. An example of this arrangement is the lower half of the Great Orme Tramway, where the section "above" the passing loop has a three-rail layout (with each pair of adjacent rails having its own conduit which the cable runs through), while the section "below" the passing loop has a two-rail layout (with a single conduit shared by both cars). The Peak Tram in Hong Kong also has this layout.

Some four-rail funiculars have their tracks interlaced above and below the passing loop; this allows the system to be nearly as narrow as a two-rail system, with a single platform at each station, while also eliminating the need for the costly junctions either side of the passing loop. The Hill Train at the Legoland Windsor Resort is an example of this configuration.

Turnout systems for two-rail funiculars
In the case of two-rail funiculars, various solutions exist for ensuring that a carriage always enters the same track at the passing loop.

One such solution involves installing switches at each end of the passing loop. These switches are moved into their desired position by the carriage's wheels during trailing movements (i.e. away from the passing loop); this procedure also sets the route for the next trip in the opposite direction. The Great Orme Tramway is an example of a funicular that utilizes this system.

Another turnout system, known as the Abt switch, involves no moving parts on the track at all. Instead, the carriages are built with an unconventional wheelset design: the outboard wheels have flanges on both sides, whereas the inboard wheels are unflanged (and usually wider to allow them to roll over the turnouts more easily). The double-flanged wheels keep the carriages bound to one specific rail at all times. One car has the flanged wheels on the left-hand side, so it follows the leftmost rail, forcing it to run via the left branch of the passing loop; similarly, the other car has them on the right-hand side, meaning it follows the rightmost rail and runs on the right branch of the loop. This system was invented by Carl Roman Abt and first implemented on the Lugano Città–Stazione funicular in Switzerland in 1886; since then, the Abt turnout has gained popularity, becoming a standard for modern funiculars. The lack of moving parts on the track makes this system cost-effective and reliable compared to other systems.

Stations

The majority of funiculars have two stations, one at each end of the track. However, some systems have been built with additional intermediate stations. Because of the nature of a funicular system, intermediate stations are usually built symmetrically about the mid-point; this allows both cars to call simultaneously at a station. Examples of funiculars with more than two stations include the Wellington Cable Car in New Zealand (five stations, including one at the passing loop) and the Carmelit in Haifa, Israel (six stations, three on each side of the passing loop).

A few funiculars with asymmetrically placed stations also exist. For example, the Petřín funicular in Prague has three stations: one at each end, and a third (Nebozízek) a short way up from the passing loop. Because of this arrangement, carriages are forced to make a technical stop a short distance down from the passing loop as well, for the sole purpose of allowing the other car to call at Nebozízek.

History

A number of cable railway systems which pull their cars on inclined slopes were built since the 1820s. In the second half of the 19th century the design of a funicular as a transit system emerged. It was especially attractive in comparison with the other systems of the time as counterbalancing of the cars was deemed to be a cost-cutting solution.

The first line of the Funiculars of Lyon (Funiculaires de Lyon) opened in 1862, followed by other lines in 1878, 1891 and 1900. The Budapest Castle Hill Funicular was built in 1868–69, with the first test run on 23 October 1869. The oldest funicular railway operating in Britain dates from 1875 and is in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. In Istanbul, Turkey, the Tünel has been in continuous operation since 1875 and is both the first underground funicular and the second-oldest underground railway. It remained powered by a steam engine up until it was taken for renovation in 1968.

Until the end of the 1870s, the four-rail parallel-track funicular was the normal configuration. Carl Roman Abt developed the Abt Switch allowing the two-rail layout, which was used for the first time in 1879 when the Giessbach Funicular opened in Switzerland.

In the United States, the first funicular to use a two-rail layout was the Telegraph Hill Railroad in San Francisco, which was in operation from 1884 until 1886. The Mount Lowe Railway in Altadena, California, was the first mountain railway in the United States to use the three-rail layout. Three- and two-rail layouts considerably reduced the space required for building a funicular, reducing grading costs on mountain slopes and property costs for urban funiculars. These layouts enabled a funicular boom in the latter half of the 19th century.

Currently, the United States' oldest and steepest funicular in continuous use is the Monongahela Incline located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Construction began in 1869 and officially opened 28 May 1870 for passenger use. The Monongahela incline also has the distinction of being the first funicular in the United States for strictly passenger use and not freight.

In 1880 the funicular of Mount Vesuvius inspired the Italian popular song Funiculì, Funiculà. This funicular was destroyed repeatedly by volcanic eruptions and abandoned after the eruption of 1944.

Exceptional examples
According to the Guinness World Records, the smallest public funicular in the world is the Fisherman's Walk Cliff Railway in Bournemouth, England, which is 39 m long.

Stoosbahn in Switzerland, with a maximum slope of 110% (47.7°), is the steepest funicular in the world.

The Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, built in 1888, is the steepest and longest water-powered funicular in the world. It climbs 152 m vertically on a 58% gradient.

The city of Valparaíso in Chile used to have up to 30 funicular elevators (ascensores). The oldest of them dates from 1883. 15 remain with almost half in operation, and others in various stages of restoration.

The Carmelit in Haifa, Israel, with six stations and a tunnel 1.8 km (1.1 mi) long, is claimed by the Guinness World Records as the "least extensive metro" in the world. Technically, it is an underground funicular.

The Dresden Suspension Railway (Dresden Schwebebahn), which hangs from an elevated rail, is the only suspended funicular in the world.

The Fribourg funicular is the only funicular in the world powered by wastewater.

Standseilbahn Linth-Limmern, capable of moving 215 t, is said to have the highest capacity.

Comparison with inclined elevators
Some inclined elevators are incorrectly called funiculars. On an inclined elevator the cars operate independently rather than in interconnected pairs, and are lifted uphill.

A notable example is Paris' Montmartre Funicular. Its formal title is a relic of its original configuration, when its two cars operated as a counterbalanced, interconnected pair, always moving in opposite directions, thus meeting the definition of a funicular. However, the system has since been redesigned, and now uses two independently-operating cars that can each ascend or descend on demand, qualifying as a double inclined elevator; the term "funicular" in its title is retained as a historical reference.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Funicular


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Line matrix printer

A line matrix printer is a computer printer that is a compromise between a line printer and a dot matrix printer. A line matrix printer prints page-wide lines of dots, building up a line of text by printing lines of dots.

Applications
Line matrix printers are used for high-speed printing applications They are used to produce invoices, bank statements, product shipment and transportation documentation as well as product compliance labels.

Line matrix printers can print text, bar codes and graphics.

When implemented as impact printers, they can be the least expensive to operate per page.

How it works
Dot matrix printers are widely used because of their low cost per page. Dot matrix printers are divided into two main groups: serial dot matrix printers and line matrix printers.

A serial dot matrix printer has a print head that runs back and forth, or in an up and down motion, on the page and prints by impact, striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon against the paper, much like the print mechanism on a typewriter. However, unlike a typewriter or daisy wheel printer, letters are drawn out of a dot matrix, and thus, varied fonts and arbitrary graphics can be produced. Because the printing involves mechanical pressure, these printers can create carbon copies and carbonless copies.

Both line matrix and serial dot matrix printers use pins to strike against the inked ribbon, making dots on the paper and forming the desired characters. The difference is that a line matrix printer uses a hammer bank (or print-shuttle) instead of print head. This print-shuttle has hammers instead of print wires, and these hammers are arranged in a horizontal row instead in vertical column. The hammer bank uses the same technology as the permanent magnet print head with the small difference that instead of print wires the print-shuttle has hammers.

The permanent magnetic field holds the hammer spring in stressed, ready to strike position. The driver sends electric current to hammer coil, which creates an electromagnetic field opposing the permanent magnetic field. When the two fields equalize, the energy stored in the spring is released to strike the hammer against the ribbon and print a dot on the paper.

During the printing process the print-shuttle vibrates in horizontal direction with high speed while the print hammers are fired selectively. Each hammer prints a series of dots in horizontal direction for one pass of the shuttle, then paper advances at one step and the shuttle prints the following row of dots.

title: Line matrix printer


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Page printer

A page printer is a computer printer which processes and prints a whole page at a time, as opposed to printers which print one line or character at a time such as line printers and dot-matrix printers. Page printers are often all incorrectly termed “laser printers”—although virtually all laser printers are page printers, other page printing technologies also exist.

Components
The components of a page printer are:
 * A print engine, "the unit within a printer that does the actual printing." For example, in a laser printer this would consist of the laser and drum and the mechanical paper feeds.
 * Memory to process input and build up the image of a page. The printer may have its own memory or may use the host computer's memory.
 * A page description language (PDL), with commands which tell the printer how to format the page. Popular PDLs are PCL (Printer Command Language) from Hewlett-Packard, PostScript from Adobe Systems and PostScript clones, and Windows’ Graphics Device Interface (GDI).
 * A raster image processor (RIP), i.e. a processor which constructs the bitmap image of the page. Sometimes, this processing is done by the host computer. In other cases printers may have imbedded processors to perform this task.
 * A printer driver, a program (device driver) which converts the computer's information about the page into the actual PDL. Printer drivers may be included with the operating system, be distributed with the printer on CDs or DVDs, or be downloaded from the printer manufacturer's home page or from independent web sites.
 * A connection (interface) to the host computer. Many printers communicate by Wi-Fi.  Other popular interfaces are USB and Ethernet.  Many older printers also have a parallel (Centronics) interface.  High-end printers often have a channel interface for direct connection to a mainframe computer.

Page printing technologies
There are several page printing technologies, for example:
 * Laser printers, in which a laser beam draws the page image on charged drum which collects charged toner and transfers the image to paper.
 * LED printers, which use light-emitting diodes instead of a laser beam, but are otherwise very similar to laser printers.
 * Melted wax (“phaser”) printers, where solid ink is heated to the melting point and is applied on the print medium where it immediately solidifies.
 * Dye-sublimation printers, where a solid ink (dye) is converted to a gaseous state (sublimation) and applied on the print medium, where it immediately solidifies.

Properties

 * Resolution, 600 or 1200 dpi (dots per inch) is common in most modern page printers, often with resolution enhancement or anti-aliasing to smooth uneven lines. Higher resolutions are common. Before about 1992, the year Hewlett-Packard made the LaserJet 4, built around a Canon engine, most page printers had only 300 dpi, which made visible jagged lines and relatively poor image quality.
 * Engine speed. In 1984 Canon introduced the first “small”—32 kg— laser printers which could sit on a (sturdy) desktop with a print speed of 8 pages per minute (ppm). Today, even the smallest page printers may be able to print 15–20 ppm, and the largest may print above 1000 ppm.
 * Processing power. Usually larger printers have more powerful processors than small personal ones.
 * Size, from personal page printers at 8–10 kg to high-volume production printers which may not be installed by one person.
 * Cost, both cost of the printer and the operating costs. Generally, the larger and more expensive printers have lower operating costs than the small and inexpensive ones.
 * Paper-handling facilities for folding, stapling, etc., especially for the larger printers.
 * Colour printing capability. Many printers print in black only.  Colour printers usually have multiple toner cartridges, wax patrons etc. Printers using CMYK colour have four, one each for the colours cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. RGB printers have three, red, green, and blue, but may also have a "true black". Some ink jet printers may have additional cartridges, for example light cyan and light magenta in addition to the others, but this is rarely found in page printers.
 * Multi-function devices provide additional functions such as copying, scanning, or Fax.
 * Media handling: Most page printers accept paper, transparencies, envelopes, labels etc. in formats up to A4 and letter. Some printers may also handle other media types such as larger formats and heavier paper.
 * Energy consumption, noise, etc. Some page printers are too noisy to stay in the near vicinity of the users, even if page printers are quieter than the old line printers and other impact printers.

title: Page printer


text:
Pulled rickshaw

A pulled rickshaw (from Japanese jinrikisha (人力車)) is a mode of human-powered transport by which a runner draws a two-wheeled cart which seats one or two people.

In recent times the use of human-powered rickshaws has been discouraged or outlawed in many countries due to concern for the welfare of rickshaw workers. Pulled rickshaws have been replaced mainly by cycle rickshaw and auto rickshaws.

Overview
Rickshaws are commonly believed to have been invented in Japan in the 1860s, at the beginning of a period of rapid technical advancement. In the 19th century, rickshaw pulling became an inexpensive, popular mode of transportation across Asia.

Peasants who migrated to large Asian cities often worked first as a rickshaw runner. It was "the deadliest occupation in the East, [and] the most degrading for human beings to pursue."

The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. In China, the rickshaw's popularity began to decline in the 1920s. In Singapore, the rickshaw's popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930.

Description
The initial rickshaws rode on iron-shod wooden wheels and the passenger sat on hard, flat seats. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, rubber or pneumatic rubber tires, spring cushions, and backrests improved the passenger's comfort. Other features, such as lights, were also added.

In the city of Shanghai, public rickshaws were painted yellow to differentiate from the private vehicles of the wealthy citizens, which were described as: "... always shiny, were carefully maintained, and sported 'a spotless white upholstered double seat, a clean plaid for one's lap, and a wide protective tarpaulin to protect the passenger (or passengers, since sometimes up to three people rode together) against the rain."

The rickshaws were a convenient means of travel, able to traverse winding, narrow city streets. During monsoon season, passengers might be carried out of the carriage, above the flooded streets, to the door of their arrival. They offered door-to-door travel, unlike scheduled public bus and tram service.

East Africa
In the 1920s, it was used in Bagamoyo and Tanga in Tanzania, and other areas of East Africa for short distances.

Madagascar
Rickshaws, known as pousse-pousse, were introduced by British missionaries. The intention was to eliminate the slavery-associated palanquin. Its name pousse-pousse, meaning push-push, is reportedly gained from the need to have a second person to push the back of the rickshaw on Madagascar's hilly roads. They are a common form of transport in a number of Malagasy cities, especially Antsirabe, but are not found in the towns or cities with very hilly roads. They are similar to Chinese rickshaws and are often brightly decorated.

Nairobi
Rickshaws operated in Nairobi in the beginning of the 20th century; pullers went on strike there in 1908.

South Africa
Durban is famous for its iconic Zulu rickshaw pullers navigating throughout the city. These colorful characters are famous for their giant, vibrant hats and costumes. They were introduced into Natal by Sir Marshall Campbell in the 1890s. There were about 2,000 registered men who pulled rickshaws in Durban in 1904; Since displaced by motorised transport, there are approximately 25 rickshaws left who mostly cater to tourists today.

China
In China, from the ancient times and until the 19th century, rich and important people, when traveling overland, were commonly transported in sedan chairs carried by bearers, rather than in wheeled vehicles. This was at least partly explained by road conditions. It is thought that it was from China (or East Asia in general) that sedan chair (a.k.a. "palanquin") designs were introduced into Western Europe in the 17th century. However, wheeled carts for one or two passengers, pushed (rather than pulled, like a proper rikshaw) by human servant, were attested as well.

In the 19th century, wheelbarrow is the most popular transportation for commoners. In the spring of 1873, the French merchant Menard introduced rickshaw from Japan. The original name is "Jinrikisha", meaning "man-power-vehicle" in Japanese. Most of the rickshaws were owned by foreign investors at the beginning, but in around the 1900s, rickshaws were owned mostly by Chinese companies. The official name for rickshaw is "renliche", meaning "man-power-vehicle" in Chinese, but it is more commonly called "dongyangche", meaning "east-foreign-vehicle", or "huangbaoche" in Shanghai, meaning "yellow carriage for rent".

Rickshaw transportation was an important element in urban development in 20th century China, as a mode of transportation, source of employment and facilitation of migration for workers. According to author David Strand: "Sixty thousand men took as many as a half million fares a day in a city of slightly more than one million. Sociologist Li Jinghan estimated that one out of six males in the city between the ages of sixteen and fifty was a puller. Rickshaw men and their dependents made up almost 20 percent of Beijing's population."

Most manual rickshaws – seen by many Maoists as a symbol of oppression of the working class – were eliminated in China after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Shanghai
Shanghai's rickshaw industry began in 1874 with 1,000 rickshaws imported from Japan. By 1914 there were 9,718 vehicles. The pullers were a large group of the city's working poor: 100,000 men pulled rickshaws by the early 1940s, up from 62,000 in the mid-1920s.

In contrary to coolies in Beijing, those in Shanghai mostly come from rural areas out of the city. With the destitution of their land, they poured into the city with their family. As the number of coolies rose up sharply, however, the number of rickshaw remained at 20,000 in Shanghai. Except private coolies, those for public work had to take turns, and thus their average income diminished to $9 per month. Therefore, many coolies worked in the factory and ran the rickshaw after work. However, many coolies were optimistic about life. They were satisfied about their income and dreamed of purchasing their own rickshaws and sending their kids to schools. Due to this low income, many coolies would not give customers a clear idea of standard price and thus charge higher at any chance they had. In response to this phenomenon, hotels would provide the distance to various streets and the price charged.

Hong Kong
Rickshaws were first imported to Hong Kong from Japan in 1880. They were a popular form of transport for many years, peaking at more than 3,000 in the 1920s. However, their popularity waned after World War II. No new licenses for rickshaws have been issued since 1975, and only a few old men—three as of 2017 —still hold a license. It is reported that only one of them still offer rickshaw rides on The Peak, mainly for tourists.

India
Around 1880, rickshaws appeared in India, first in Simla. At the turn of the century it was introduced in Kolkata (Calcutta), India and in 1914 was a conveyance for hire.

Service availability
Though most cities offer auto rickshaw service, hand-pulled rickshaws do exist in some areas, such as Kolkata, "the last bastion of human powered tana rickshaws". According to Trillin, most Kolkata rickshaws serve people "just a notch above poor" who tend to travel short distances. However, in a recent article by Hyrapiet and Greiner, the authors found that rickshaws also transport middle-class residents who use their services out of convenience and for short-distance trips to the local marketplace. Rickshaws are used to transport goods, shoppers, and school children. It is also used as a "24-hour ambulance service." Also according to Hyrapiet and Greiner, rickshaw pullers have acted as peer-educators for the Calcutta Samaritans providing critical information on HIV/AIDS because of their access to marginalized groups within Kolkata's red light districts.

Rickshaws are the most effective means of transportation through the flooded streets of the monsoon season. When Kolkata floods rickshaw business increases and prices rise.

The pullers live a life of poverty and many sleep under rickshaws. Rudrangshu Mukerjee, an academic, stated many people's ambivalent feelings about riding a rickshaw: he does not like being carried about in a rickshaw but does not like the idea of "taking away their livelihood".

Motor vehicles are banned in the Eco-sensitive zone area of Matheran, India, a tourist hill station near Mumbai so man-pulled rickshaws are still one of the major forms of transport there.

Legislation
In August 2005, the Communist government of West Bengal announced plans to completely ban pulled rickshaws, resulting in protests and strikes of the pullers. In 2006, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, announced that pulled rickshaws would be banned and that rickshaw pullers would be rehabilitated.

Indonesia
Pulled rickshaws used to be in Indonesia a long time ago. Nowadays, they are replaced by Delman (the horse-drawn carriage) and Becak (cycle rickshaw/pedicab).

Japan
There are several theories about the invention of the rickshaw. Japan historian Seidensticker wrote of the theories: "Though the origins of the rickshaw are not entirely clear, they seem to be Japanese, and of Tokyo specifically. The most widely accepted theory offers the name of three inventors, and gives 1869 as the date of invention."

Starting in 1870, the Tokyo government issued a permission for Izumi Yosuke, Takayama Kosuke, and Suzuki Tokujiro to build and sell rickshaws. By 1872, they became the main mode of transportation in Japan, with about 40,000 rickshaws in service.

The rickshaw's popularity in Japan declined by the 1930s with the advent of automated forms of transportation, like automobiles and trains. After World War II, when gasoline and automobiles were scarce, they made a temporary come-back. The rickshaw tradition has stayed alive in Kyoto and Tokyo's geisha districts only for tourists as well as in other tourist places. The tradition completely disappeared once, but a few people revived jinrikisha (human-powered rickshaws) for tourists in the 1970s-1980s and the rickshaws became popular as a tourism resource in the 2000s. The modern rickshaw men are a kind of tourist guide, who take their clients to some tourist spots and explain about them. Many of them are part-time working students and athletes who like running or exchanging cultures.

Malaysia
Rickshaws were a common mode of transport in urban areas of Malaysia in the 19th and early 20th centuries until gradually replaced by cycle rickshaws.

Pakistan
Pulled and cycle rickshaw (qinqi) have been banned in Pakistan since April 1960. Prior to the introduction of auto rickshaws in cities, horse-drawn carriages (tongas) were a main source of public transportation.

Philippines
The pulled rickshaw never gained acceptance in the Philippines. Americans tried to introduce it to Manila in the early 20th century, but it was strongly opposed by local Filipinos who viewed it as an undignified mode of transport that turned humans into "beasts". The main mode of public and private transportation in the Philippines from the 18th to the early 20th centuries was the kalesa, a two-wheeled horse-drawn carriage.

Singapore
Singapore had received its first rickshaws in 1880 and soon after they were prolific, making a "noticeable change in the traffic on Singapore's streets." Bullock carts and gharries were used prior to the introduction of rickshaws.

Many of the poorest individuals in Singapore in the late nineteenth century were poor, unskilled people of Chinese ancestry. Sometimes called coolies, the hardworking men found pulling rickshaws was a new means of employment. Rickshaw pullers experienced "very poor" living conditions, poverty and long hours of hard work. Income remained unchanged from 1876 to 1926, about $.60 per day.

Rickshaws popularity increased into the 20th century. There were approximately 50,000 rickshaws in 1920 and that number doubled by 1930. In or after the 1920s a union was formed, called the Rickshaw Association, to protect the welfare of rickshaw workers.

United States
From A History of the Los Angeles City Market (1930-1950), pulled rickshaws were operated in Los Angeles by high school teenagers during that time period.

Canada
Foot-driven rickshaws have enjoyed several decades of popularity in Halifax, Nova Scotia; in addition to providing tours of the historic Waterfront, rickshaws are also occasionally used for transportation by local residents. The city is home to the oldest rickshaw company in Canada.

Rickshaws are a popular mode of transportation in downtown Ottawa, Ontario, providing tours of historical Byward Market, in the summer. Ottawa's rickshaws stay true to the traditional foot-driven rickshaw model, but feature modern sound-systems.

Books, films, television, music and modern art

 * An early Rudyard Kipling story has the title The Phantom Rickshaw (1885). In it a young Englishman has a romance aboard a ship bound for India. He ends the affair and becomes engaged to another woman, causing his original love to die of a broken heart. After that, on excursions around the city of Simla, he frequently sees the ghost of the deceased driving around in her yellow-panelled rickshaw, though nobody else seems to notice the phenomenon.
 * The 1936 novel Rickshaw Boy is a novel by the Chinese author Lao She about the life of a fictional Beijing rickshaw man. The English version Rickshaw Boy became a U.S. bestseller in 1945. It was an unauthorized translation that added a happy ending to the story. In 1982, the original version was made into a film of the same title.
 * In the 1940s, Eddy Howard recorded a song called The Rickety Rickshaw Man.
 * The 1958 Japanese movie Muhomatsu no issho (Rickshaw Man) by Hiroshi Inagaki tells the story of a Matsugoro, a rickshaw man who becomes a surrogate father to the child of a recently widowed woman.
 * The 1953 Bollywood film Do Bigha Zameen, directed by Bimal Roy, describes the fate of an impoverished farmer who becomes a rickshaw puller in Kolkata.
 * In the 1992 film City of Joy (whose title refers to Kolkata), Om Puri plays a rickshaw puller, revealing the economic and emotional hardship that these underpaid workers face on a day-to-day basis.
 * In Pearl S. Buck's 1931 novel The Good Earth, hero Wang Lung leaves his land to travel southward during a drought. He ends up in the city of Kiangsu (Jiangsu), where he becomes a rickshaw puller in order to support his family.
 * In the 1998 Seinfeld episode "The Bookstore", Kramer and Newman decide to start a rickshaw business with homeless people being trained to carry passengers.

Rickshaws

 * Electric rickshaw
 * Auto rickshaw
 * Cycle rickshaw
 * Rickshaw
 * Rickshaw art

Other human powered transport

 * Human-powered transport
 * Boda-boda (bicycle taxi)
 * Carriage
 * Litter
 * Handcar
 * Taiwanese push car railways

title: Pulled rickshaw


text:
Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (10 July 1875 – 30 March 1956), who generally published under the names E. C. Bentley or E. Clerihew Bentley, was an English novelist and humorist, and inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse on biographical topics.

Biography
Bentley was born in London and educated at St Paul's School and Merton College, Oxford. His father, John Edmund Bentley, was professionally a civil servant but was also a rugby union international having played in the first-ever international match for England against Scotland in 1871. Bentley worked as a journalist on several newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph. He also worked for the weekly The Outlook during the editorship of James Louis Garvin. His first published collection of poetry, titled Biography for Beginners (1905), popularised the clerihew form; it was followed by two other collections, More Biography (1929) and Baseless Biography (1939).

His detective novel Trent's Last Case (1913) was much praised, numbering Dorothy L. Sayers among its admirers, and with its labyrinthine and mystifying plotting can be seen as the first truly modern mystery. It was adapted as a film in 1920, 1929, and 1952. The success of the work inspired him, after 23 years, to write a sequel, Trent's Own Case (1936). There was also a book of Trent short stories, Trent Intervenes (1938).

From 1936 until 1949 Bentley was president of the Detection Club. He contributed to two crime stories for the club's radio serials broadcast in 1930 and 1931, which were published in 1983 as The Scoop and Behind The Screen. In 1950 he contributed the introduction to a Constable & Co omnibus edition of Damon Runyon's "Stories of the bandits of Broadway", which was republished by Penguin Books in 1990 as On Broadway.

He died in 1956 in London at the age of 80. His son Nicolas Bentley was an illustrator.

Phonographic recordings of his work "Recordings for the Blind" are heard in the film Places in the Heart, by the character Mr. Will.

G. K. Chesterton dedicated his popular detective novel, The Man Who Was Thursday, to Bentley, who was a school friend.

Although he is best known for his crime fiction and clerihews, Bentley also wrote at least one science fiction short story. This is the recently re-discovered "Flying Visit", published in the Evening Standard on 31 March 1953.

Fiction

 * "The Inoffensive Captain". The Strand Magazine, March 1914. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Clever Cockatoo". The Strand Magazine, July 1914. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Ordinary Hair-Pins". The Strand Magazine, October 1916. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Sweet Shot". The Strand Magazine, March 1937. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Old-Fashioned Apache". The Strand Magazine, May 1937. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "Trent and the Vanishing Lawyer". The Strand Magazine, August 1937. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938) as "The Vanishing Lawyer".
 * "Trent and the Bad Dog". The Strand Magazine, September 1937. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "Trent and the Genuine Tabard". The Strand Magazine, January 1938. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938) as "The Genuine Tabard".
 * "Trent and the Unknown Peer". The Strand Magazine, February 1938. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938) as "The Unknown Peer".
 * "Trent and the Ministering Angel". The Strand Magazine, November 1938. Collected in Trent Intervenes (HarperCollins Detective Story Club edition, 2017) as "The Ministering Angel".
 * "The Public Benefactor". Magazine publication unknown. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Little Mystery". Magazine publication unknown. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938).
 * "The Fool-Proof Lift". Magazine publication unknown. Collected in Trent Intervenes (1938) as "Trent and the Fool-Proof Lift".
 * "Flying Visit". Evening Standard (London), 31 March 1953.

Non-fiction

 * "Two Machines and a Party". Daily News (London), 7 November 1905.
 * "Hearst for Governor". Daily News (London), 21 October 1906.
 * "Naas". Daily News (London), 6 November 1906.
 * Peace Year in the City, 1918–1919: An Account of the Outstanding Events in the City of London During Peace Year, in the Mayoralty of the Rt. Hon. Sir Horace Brooks Marshall, K.C.V.O., LL.D., Following the Great War of 1914–1918. London, 1920.
 * "G. K.". The Listener, 17 June 1936.
 * "Hitler Again Demonstrates His Pet Brand of Treachery". Ballymena Weekly Telegraph, 20 April 1940.
 * "These Things Are Kept from the German Public". The Daily Telegraph, date unknown. Reprinted: Belfast Telegraph, 4 June 1940.
 * "Next US President". The Daily Telegraph, date unknown. Reprinted: Belfast Telegraph, 27 June 1940.
 * "The Lie as a Wartime Weapon". The Daily Telegraph, date unknown. Reprinted: Belfast Telegraph, 31 July 1940.
 * "I Am Glad I Was Born When I Was". The Listener, 29 August 1940.
 * "Nazi Propaganda in Last War". The Daily Telegraph, date unknown. Reprinted: Belfast Telegraph, 7 September 1940.
 * "Boys and Girls of Yesterday and Today". The Listener, 12 December 1940.
 * "The Interesting Age". The Listener, 16 December 1943.

Book reviews

 * "Arabi's Side". Daily News (London), 10 June 1907.
 * "The King's Serjeants". Daily News (London), 21 June 1911.

title: Edmund Clerihew Bentley


text:
Talk:Virgin Islands

Organization
As things are currently organized the pages for the BVI and USVI include only the list of links to the standard list of topics about countries, and could now be deleted. Similarly there is a series of orphans for each of these topics as "Virgin Islands/...". They do nothing more than link to the corresponding topics at BVI and USVI. They too could be deleted. It seems to me that by putting all the links on this page we could eliminate two alternate intermediate systems of linkage Eclecticology, Sunday, April 28, 2002

Spanish Virgin Islands?
I have heard Puerto Ricans refer to their eastern islands (main ones being Culebra and Vieques) as being the "Spanish Virgin Islands." Is this a proper term, and if so, should that group be added here? — Eoghanacht  talk 13:03, 29 September 2005 (UTC),

Because Culebra and Vieques are geologically part of the archipelago, there should be a map that includes them. The current map excludes them on a political basis, but geologically should be included as part of the "archipelago," as the articles for the USVI and the BVI and the "Spanish Virgin Islands" already account for the political divisions. -Laikalynx (talk) 03:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The Capital City of the U.S. Virgin Islands is Charlotte Amalie. Charlotte Amalie. The harbor is also named Charlotte Amalie and is the most popular port in the Caribbean.Valpotim (talk) 03:06, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is not right to say that Culebra and Vieques are the Spanish Virgin Islands. They are in fact two of the 78 municipilaties of Puerto Rico and both are led by elected mayors. In fact, Puerto Rico comprises an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques and Culebra. Therefore, these two islands are part of PR and should be included in the Antilles group, Puerto Rico being the smallest of the Greater Antilles, which include Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. Therefore, there is not such thing as Spanish Virgin Islands.

Last paragraph seems inappropriate for encyclopedia.
Particularly starting from "Read more about this...". And first sentence ("Should not be confused...") - if it is needed - could be made a part of respective paragraph where Britich Virgin Islands are introduced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaborandi (talk • contribs) 11:23, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

These words have been single words in the English language for a long, long, time
These words have been single words in the English language for a long, long, time:

northeastern, southeasterm, southwesterm, and northwestern,

and this has been recognized by such authorities in the Western Hemisphere as

The Congress of the United States (as early as 1787, if not earlier),

and the Parliament of Canada, nearly a century ago.

The Congress under the Articles of Confederation passed the Northwest Ordinance, establishing the Northwest Territory in 1787.

The Parliament of Canada made this name for part of that country official a long lime ago: the Northwest Territories. That name still exists, even though its original land has been divided between the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. 98.81.9.116 (talk) 00:03, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Like a Virgin?
Sure, that was a song by Madonna. But I don't think this to be the official name of the islands. If I'm right - remove it. If I am wrong - an explanation is necessary or other people will stumble about this name too. --93.129.84.75 (talk) 13:03, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand the problem. The islands in this area have been commonly known as the "Virgin Islands" for a long time. The United States has only three virgin islands, St. John (the smallest), St. Thomas and St. Croix. There are others. St. John, at least, was lush, unspoilt, and unexplored. At that time, there was at least one virgin in these islands - me. --Blumrosen (talk) 01:15, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Freedom and Slave Revolt
Unfortunately, at the moment, I do not have the source material. But, from recollection - having lived there - St. John, USVI, was the site of two events that are not mentioned (yet) in this article:

1. The Arawak or Caribs kept the island and their freedom for almost a century by warring against, and scaring off, Christopher Columbus.

2. The island was turned into a group of plantations, mostly to grow sugar cane. At what is now considered the far end of the island, Coral Bay was the site of the first slave revolt. The slaves were chased to the craggy edge of the island where they dove to their deaths rather than having to live as slaves again.

Of course, this could all be an urban mythic trick of my memory. But, if someone is interested and has time, and these events turn out to be historically true, they could add depth to this article.

Now, all the article says is:

"The Virgin Islands were originally inhabited by the Arawak, Carib, and Cermic, all of whom are thought to have perished during the colonial period due to enslavement, foreign disease, and mass extermination[citation needed] brought by European colonists.

"European colonists later settled here and established sugar plantations, at least one tobacco plantation, and purchased slaves acquired from Africa. The plantations are gone, but the descendants of the slaves remain the bulk of the population, sharing a common African-Caribbean heritage with the rest of the English-speaking Caribbean."

3. The business of the plantations is gone. The plantations live on in the remaining structures and people's minds. Some of the sugar mills and historical stories are preserved as part of the National Park.

--Blumrosen (talk) 01:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC) Irish slaves were shipped to the islands before Africans The Irish couldn't adapt to the heat and the sun. Slave owners breed the Irish and African slaves the mixed race was called mulattoes. This practice was banned because it was impacting the slave trade. 64.223.237.32 (talk) 13:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

The boundary between the Greater and Lesser Antilles
Can anyone tell me why the very small Virgin Passage is used as the boundary between the Greater and Lesser Antilles instead of the more significant Anegada Passage? In my opinion, Anegada Passage would be a much better choice as all the islands east of this Passage are very small and spreading southerly towards South America. Also, by using Anegada Passage as the boundary, all three parts of the Virgin Islands would be included in the Greater Antilles. Right now, only the Spanish Virgin Islands is considered a part of the Greater Antilles, that's weird. 2001:8003:9008:1301:70BF:5EFB:E84A:9D69 (talk) 03:49, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Chad???
OK, a user (who apparently has never done anything else, added "Chad" to the See Also list here.  It looked to me like just a bit of mischief, so I took it out and commented that if someone wants to put it back, someone should explain it.  That person DID put it back, with a cryptic comment referencing some "Chad vs Virgin meme." I had no idea what that meant, so I reverted it again, and posted a mild span warning to this User's talk page.  But now, I find that there is such a meme, and Chad has a slang meaning. OK, but I hold that the See Also link is not appropriate.  As to whether it constitutes vandalism (in the form of gratuitous mischief) or an ill-advised but "good faith" edit, I suggest it falls somewhere in between. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thirty seconds after I posted this, I found that this "user" has responded to standard warning messages on his/her talk page with vulgar personal cheap shots. Time to block, I think. Uporządnicki (talk) 17:22, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

"Contributions" from a "reformed" vandal??
One User:Mystic880, who professes on his/her Userpage to be a former vandal looking to mend his/her ways has filled this page with a curious contribution. He/she has replaced the word "Virgin" with "fortnite" (or once with "gamer")--not in every instance, but throughout the article. The User left no note, as far as I've seen, explaining why this is constructive, and not vandalism. Someone reverted the first instance of this, but many remain. I'm leaving it for someone who knows better than I do what to do about it. Uporządnicki (talk) 12:42, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
 * The same user has come in and continued the job. Uporządnicki (talk) 14:43, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Virgin Islands