Abstract: An inked ribbon cartridge has two sets of ribbon feed mechanisms, one for each core means around which the ribbon is wound, allowing the ribbon to travel back and forth so that the cartridge can be loaded upside down when the upper half of the ribbon has been used up thereby doubling the useful life of the cartridge. Two springs apply a predetermined force to two ratchet wheels which are connected to first and second core means for preventing an over-rotation of the core means. Each feed mechanism comprises a feed driven roller and a feed drive roller.

Abstract: A serial impact printer has two printing modes, one being a formed-character mode and the other a dot matrix mode. A plurality of dot matrix wires are disposed behind a character carrying member having characters on fingers. One of the wires impacts a selected finger in the formed-character mode. In the dot matrix mode, however, printing is performed by directly contacting a paper with selected ones of said dot matrix wires.