人们近来常常谈到惠普的ePrint技术，最新发布的打印机支持神奇的“云打印”功能——想象一下，当你外出去别的地方，你可以把要打印的文档通过电子邮件直接发送给打印机。谈到这里，我们不禁想了解一下，作为惠普打印系列经典产品之一的ThinkJet，是如何诞生的呢？
    People have been talking about HP's ePrint technology (check out this demo as posted on Engadget) and you should check out what the latest, greatest HP printers cand do -- imagine emailing documents to your printer when you're nowhere near it. But what about one of the HP classics, the ThinkJet?

这款小巧、坚固、耐用的打印机诞生于1984年，采用热喷墨打印技术。如同HP-35计算器彻底代替了手工计算尺，喷墨打印技术终结了吵闹的点阵列打印机。惠普公司开发的热喷墨打印技术，为人们带来了高质量、低成本的个人打印机。
    This small, rugged printer, dubbed ThinkJet for thermal inkjet, was introduced in 1984. Just as the HP-35 calculator replaced the manual slide rule forever, inkjet technology spelled the end for the noisy dot-matrix printer. Thermal inkjet technology developed at HP was introduced in a high-quality, low-price personal printer. (Though you’re free to admit if you missed out on the good old days of having to rip the notch-fed paper from your printer).

这项发明来自于一位惠普的工程师，他当时正在研究集成电路应用开发薄膜技术。在研究基于硅薄膜对电刺激的反应时，电使得介质过热，在薄膜下面的液滴被喷散开来。于是，一个创意就此诞生。如果我们可以精确的控制这些液体的喷射，那将会怎样？大型的工业用喷墨生产设备当时已经存在，但关键是它们只能为工业用途打印很大的字符。一瞬间，工程师想到，这种生产技术可以被小型化，它具备先天的优势，而且只需很少的电力，成本低廉。
    The invention came about when an engineer working on developing thin-film technology for integrated circuit applications was testing the response of a thin silicon-based film to electrical stimulation. The electricity superheated the medium, and droplets of fluid lying under the film were expelled. An idea was born. What if you could finely control these jets of fluid? Large, industrial inkjet marking devices already existed, but up to this point only crude printing of quite large characters for industrial purposes was practical. Suddenly it looked like this marking technology could be miniaturized—and it had the advantages of requiring very little power to print and being inherently inexpensive to manufacture.

喷墨技术的诞生，给惠普提供了一次非常好的市场机会：用技术领先的喷墨打印机替代当时市场上便宜的串行点阵打印机。喷墨打印机可以提供更好打印质量，更清晰的字体和图形，更安静的运行状态，极低的功耗，以及高质量低成本彩色打印等潜力。
    Inkjet technology offered HP the opportunity to replace the least expensive printer in the market—serial dot-matrix printers—with products that were superior in every way. Inkjet had the potential for better print quality, greater font and graphics capabilities, quieter operation, extremely low power consumption and, eventually, high-quality, low-cost color.

附加信息：
Additional information:

• 下载ThinkJet说明书(PDF, 1.07Mb)
• ThinkJet brochure (PDF, 1.07Mb)

• 以六个视角来观看打印机
• A six-view look at the printer

• 倾听ThinkJet运行。记录这个声音时，我们使用了HP 912数字相机，距离打印机顶部大约4英寸，机盖打开，因此你可以听到喷墨打印头在纸张上移动，以及走纸的声音。这个例子相对较响，正常使用时的音量会因为与打印机的距离较远而减弱
• Listen to the ThinkJet in action. This sound was recorded using the HP 912 digital camera located about 4 inches away from the top of the printer with the lid open so you can hear the inkjet print head move across the paper and the advance of the paper through the printer. Although this sample is relatively loud, during normal use the apparent sound volume is greatly diminished at greater distances from the printer.

What else was happening in 1984?
1984年还发生了什么？

如果留意之前的文章，你会发现惠普的第一台膝上型电脑HP-110诞生于1984年。此外，那年麦当娜首次亮相于美国音乐台。索尼和飞利浦发明了CD-ROM技术并销售了首批播放器。电影《终结者》上映，那个长得像美国加州州长的终结者从未来回来灭绝人类。发现号航天飞机在这一年升空，我们首次见识到了人类飞行器进入太空。对于美剧CSI的粉丝们来说，你们要知道，DNA分析首次被发明出来也是在1984年。

Well, if you paid attention to my previous posts, you’d notice that the HP-110, HP’s first laptop, also came out in 1984. Beyond that, Madonna made her first appearance on American Bandstand. Sony and Philips invented CD-ROM technology and sold the first players. Terminators that resembled the California-state governor started coming back from the future to halt humanity. The space shuttle Discovery launches and inside the same year, we saw the first ever flight in space by humans using flight packs. And for fans of all those CSI TV shows: DNA profiling was first invented in 1984.