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Although they serve very different functions, the
laser printer and the photocopier make use of exactly the same technology,
harnessing the power of electrostatic energy to transfer dry ink
to the page. In fact, the laser printer is simply an adaptation
of the xerographic machines invented thirty years earlier.
The photocopier is born
In 1938, an American law student named Chester Carlson (who would
later become a patent attorney, cashing in on his skills as an inventor)
succeeded in creating the first xerographic image, after many years
of work. From the Greek words for "dry" and "writing," xerography
uses the principles of static electricity to transfer dry ink (or
toner) to the page. It was only in 1946 that Carlson found a company
willing to manufacture his electrostatic photocopiers: the Haloid
Company, which later became the Xerox Corporation. In 1949, Xerox's
machines became commercially available for the first time. The Model
A was large, complex, and required the user to perform several steps
by hand in order to create a single copy. The first fully automatic
xerographic machine, the Xerox 914, came on the market in 1959 and
could print seven copies per minute. This is the model on which
modern photocopiers and laser printers are based.
The first laser printers
In 1978, a Xerox employee named Gary Starkweather succeeded in adding
a laser beam to existing Xerox photocopier technology to create
the first laser printer. The Xerox 9700 could print 120 pages per
minute (it remains the fastest laser printer to this day). However,
its size and cost were prohibitive, particularly as personal computing
became more and more popular and printers needed to be marketable
to individual consumers.
Desktop laser printers
In the early 1980s, demand was high for a printer that could produce
better quality text and graphics than the impact printers already
on the market. Hewlett Packard answered the call with its LaserJet
printer, which could print 8 pages per minute. HP made desktop laser
printing possible by redesigning the toner cartridge so that it
could easily be replaced by the printer's owner. While this design
remains very popular, the expense and environmental questions raised
by disposable toner cartridges have also spawned the creation of
the toner cartridge re-manufacturing industry.
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