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In the early 20th century, anyone who wanted to
reproduce a document had to deal with messy, inefficient, and tedious
methods. Before the invention of the electrostatic photocopier,
the options included the mimeograph machine (which was slow and
couldn't make single copies of documents), copy photography (which
was very expensive), and wet photocopiers (which used messy liquid
chemicals).
A brilliant invention
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.
Xeroxing catches on
After patenting his invention and making improvements in the design,
Carlson pitched his invention to IBM, RCA, Remington Rand, General
Electric, Eastman Kodak, the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and a dozen
other companies, but none were interested in investing. 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 are based.
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