One of the earliest mass-market attempts at reliable, high-speed printing, dot matrix printers used a set of pins that could be fired rapidly at an inked ribbon to form characters on an underlying sheet of paper. While speedy, these printers suffered from relatively poor print quality. Even higher-end models with as many as 48 pins could produce only near-letter-quality text. Lower-end, 9-pin models were suitable only for printing drafts. If you're looking to print on continuous sheets of paper or are interested in making banners, dot matrix might be the way to go. They're also typically the most affordable printers.