Whenever I cover printing in an A+ class, I invariably am asked why anyone would use dot-matrix printers today. It's a good question and I handle it by tossing it back to the student. I ask them when the last time they saw a dot-matrix printer or the printout from one. If they can't remember, I'll list the times I run into them: at Jiffy Lube and other car service places, at the DMV, at airport check-in. If that doesn't help them, I bring up that when I was sysadmin at a Northern Virginia moving company, we would need to print up forms for the DOD and State Department. When I brought up those agencies, the student would usually get what I was looking for (the need to print in triplicate). It's not the sole reason to use dot-matrix, of course, but it is a driver for why they still exist and are still used.
I'll use the example of dot-matrix to launch into two different paths of inquiry. The first is the persistence of legacy technologies. Why do technologies persist after they have been replaced by something more modern? The second is to come up with a non-dot-matrix solution to the printing in triplicate problem.
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