Abstract: Electrothermal printing apparatus includes a thin, planar, endless ribbon of electrically resistive material having a thin conductive layer on an outside surface thereof and a row of spaced-apart, conductive styli individually selectively coupleable to the conductive layer through a voltage source and disposed in contact with the ribbon at the inside surface thereof opposite the conductive layer. Momentarily coupling selected ones of the styli to the voltage source produces heating of discrete areas of the resistive ribbon adjacent the momentarily coupled styli. The ribbon which is mounted on one or more rollers moves relative to the styli and in the same direction and at the same speed as an adjacent length of thermally sensitive paper so that discrete areas of the ribbon heated by the styli remain in contact with the thermally sensitive paper long enough to color discrete areas of the paper adjacent the heated discrete areas of the resistive ribbon.

Abstract: A system remaps image data generated by successive sweeps of the image by a single transducer element into a format for use by a print head assembly which requires the simultaneous application of plural modulating signals to a plurality of print elements thereon to effect printing of the image. Horizontal strips of the image data corresponding to the height of the arrangement of print elements within the head assembly are successively transferred from a page buffer which stores the image to a horizontal strip buffer, from which successive columns of each strip along the length thereof are transferred through a rotator for rearrangement into new groups of data oriented at right angles relative to the prior arrangement thereof for storage in a vertical strip buffer. From the vertical strip buffer the new groups of data are applied through deserializers to modulate the plural print elements in the form of ink jet nozzles as the head assembly undergoes successive sweeps across a printable medium.