For the television series, see Hard Copy.

In computer graphics and telecommunications, a hard copy is a permanent reproduction, on any media suitable for direct use by a person (in particular paper), of displayed or transmitted data.

Examples of hard copy include teleprinter pages, continuous printed tapes, facsimile pages, computer printouts, and radiophoto prints.

Magnetic tapes, diskettes, and nonprinted punched paper tapes are not hard copy.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and MIL-STD-188.

In semiconductor electronics, an ASIC hard copy can be made of an FPGA.

Hard copy normally refers to the Altera technique of producing a structured cell asic where the cells are the same design as the FPGA, but the programmable routing is replaced with fixed wire interconnect. These devices then do not need and cannot be re-programming as an FPGA.

External links

• Hard copy as defined in Federal Standard 1037C.
• Hard Copy Altera's Hard Copy