Jack Taylor wrote:
"chris harrison" wrote in message
.. .

I wish we still had the SWT machines on the stations I seem to use,
they've been mostly replaced by whizzy screen-based ones which are
demonstrably slower than the crawled-from-the-80s versions.

Although have some advantages (more stations, payment by plastic) speed
is not one of them.


Much of the reduction in speed comes from the supposedly improved printers
that these machines use. It's the same problem as in supermarkets, where the
latest POS systems seem noticeably slower than their predecessors.

POS system printers are moving away from impact printers (i.e.
dot-matrix) and heading for thermal printers, similar to fax machines.
Unlike impact printers, thermal printers can print anything...
unfortunately they are also a lot slower. Aesthetics over speed (a
pretty till receipt stays with you for longer than a wait at the till -
unless it's a pretty long wait!)


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London