What is "Throughput?"

OKI has always stressed the importance of throughput as well as the character-per-second (cps) rating when referring to the speed capability of its dot matrix printers.

Characters per second is the rate at which text would be printed in the middle of a long print line. However, this is not representative of what is experienced in actual usage, since the printhead must accelerate, slow down, stop and reverse direction for each line printed. Some amount of time is also required to advance the paper during line feeding operations. Consequently, the cps rating is an upper limit of printing speed.

The throughput is a far more accurate measure of practical printer speed. Throughput is defined as the average printing rate, expressed in characters per second, observed over one or more pages of actual printing. Throughput is dependent upon many characteristics other than cps, ie., the amount of text on each line, the number of lines on each page, existence of graphics, "white space," etc.

Consequently, the printer with the faster cps specification may not actually get the print job printed faster.