During the first half of the 20th century he was easily one of the most famous people throughout the known the world. A cartoonist, the explorer, the reporter, adventurer, illustrator, collector and seeker of the odd and unusual, Robert Ripley became synonymous with the 4 word challenge to Believe It of Not!

If you haven’t taken the opportunity to just wander through Ripley’s world of amazing, unbelievable but true stores online at http://www.ripleys.com/ you might just be missing the chance of getting exposed to the kind of odd trivia that could make you a sure conversational hit at the next social hour you attend. Included in that world of the weird was an article on  paperless printing that caught my attention.

Now going digital is one thing. In fact, there are blog entries dating back many years about paperless printing such as this one posted in 2006; PaperLess Printer: Virtual Printer that Saves Print Jobs to Files. In the posting the author explains about applications that can take the raw data from the program that wants to print and converts it into a universal readable multimedia format. In other words, the electronic document or page you are working with is printed to a digital image.

And then there are the guys who went green with their printing by hooking up their printer directly to a shredder. Guess this qualifies for some degree of paperless printing?

But what the folks at Ripley’s found is a printer that works without toners, ink or paper. A real paperless printer!

This technology wizardry is from a Japanese company called Sanwa Newtec. The device is called the PrePeat RP-3100 and is based on using a thermal head and special sheets of PET plastic that can be reused over and over again.

Click to read the full CrunchGear Gadget report on the PrePeat RP-3100.