Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'

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1D Printer

When 3D is 2D too many

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Uses ticker tape as a paper supply. Handy for transcribing conversations in Morse code, recording the EKGs of dead people, and literally dozens of other "uses".

—	ytk, Mar 20 2011

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[+]

—	MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 20 2011

You mean it just printed dots?

—	pocmloc, Mar 20 2011

This was also called the telegraph printer.

—	ldischler, Mar 20 2011

[IanTindale] - I remember when the holes in the paper for the tractor feed would tear, yeilding a one-line report. Did you have a slipped head-drive belt as well?

—	lurch, Mar 20 2011

This is how Morse code originally worked. A solenoid raised and lowered a pen that made contact with a steadily scrolling strip of tape. Then people realised that experienced operators could decode the message without actually looking at the tape, so they took it out completely, and we ended up where we are today.

—	Wrongfellow, Mar 20 2011

So this is punched tape storage but with ink instead...

—	Spacecoyote, Mar 22 2011

The Hughes Telegraph actually prints out the text of the message, not the Morse code itself. It's not really the same thing at all.

Besides, this idea isn't specifically for a Morse code printer, just a printer that prints in one dimension. You could also use it to, say, diagram the shortest path coplanar to the paper between the midpoints of the two line segments described by the intersection of the paper and two parallel lines coplanar with the paper and running perpendicular to the direction of travel of the print head relative to the paper. Try doing THAT with a telegraph printer.