Abstract: An incremental impact printer of the dot matrix type. Binary words representative of data to be printed along a line of print may be accepted from either the printer keyboard or the output of a computer or other source. The printer electronics provides for either a single character or a burst of characters to be substantially instantaneously printed upon receipt. The print head is always moved to the right of the last character printed to facilitate observation of that character. The next character is printed by first moving the print head to the left of the last character printed and then abruptly reversing the print head to print one or a burst of characters "on the fly". A novel registration system serves the dual function of accurately locating the proper position for a character to be printed and determining the direction of movement of the print head at any given instant.