Okidata

Behind the brand sits Oki Electric Industry, founded all the way back in 1881 as a telegraph maker. Its printer division, Okidata, became known for the Microline range of dot matrix printers — nine- and 24-pin machines built to grind through stacks of forms for decades.

Oki was also early to an alternative route past the laser: LED printers, where a row of light-emitting diodes replaces the laser's moving mirror. Fewer moving parts, tighter mechanics, same electrophotographic principle. In niches like logistics and retail, where endless paper webs feed through tractor drives, the dot matrix printer lives on — and Oki with it.