High speed on the fly printer providing arresting of the type characters in the printing positions

Claim 1

A high speed on-the-fly impact printer of the platen type comprising: a type-carrying member supporting a character set and movable to bring to at least one selected printing position, one at a time and in sequence, all the characters of the set, said characters passing said printing position with a predetermined transverse velocity with respect to the platen, said type-carrying member comprising a flexible elastic supporting means for each character in the form of a cantilever mounted finger, each finger having a type element body mounted on the tip thereof, and printing means to apply an impulse to a selected one of said type element bodies in a direction oblique with respect to said platen, said finger having a moment of inertia to bending in said oblique direction not greater than the moment of inertia to bending in other directions, said impulse acting on said body to cause it to move against the platen with a predetermined velocity, said velocity having a tangential component with respect to the platen which is opposite to the transverse velocity at which the characters pass the printing position, such that during printing the relative transverse velocity between the selected type element body and the print receiving member is substantially reduced.