character-at-a-time printer
- noun
- Specialized
:
impresora de caracteres
- Unlike modern printers, a character-at-a-time printer is much slower because it prints individual characters.
Examples
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Many early computers used a character-at-a-time printer for report generation.
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The old character-at-a-time printer was noisy but reliable in its output.
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The character-at-a-time printer is quite slow.
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Many character-at-a-time printers are no longer in use.
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Many early computers relied on a character-at-a-time printer to produce documents accurately.
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The old character-at-a-time printer worked by printing each letter separately, making it quite slow.
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For his project, he chose a character-at-a-time printer because it was simple and effective for basic text printing.
Synonyms
A machine that prints letters one at a time
A machine that puts letters or numbers on paper one at a time using a serial port
How Fast
- Specialized
- Archaic
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
character-at-a-time + printer
The meaning is directly compositional: 'character-at-a-time' denotes doing something one character at a time and combined with 'printer' yields a printer that prints single characters sequentially. This follows the transparent and common English pattern 'X-at-a-time' (and has clear parallels in other languages), so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily infer the meaning.
Etymology
Character-at-a-time printer is named for the way it prints: it makes each character at a time, printing one letter or number after another. So the name describes a slower printer that puts down individual characters rather than a whole line or page.
