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To: Dragonfly who wrote (928)	5/14/1998 3:30:00 PM
From: Robert Winchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1600

Sorry. > "Birth of the Laser Printer" > > Gary Starkweather > Apple Computer > > 5:30 PM, Tuesday, March 25 > Training and Conference Center > Moffett Field > Mt. View > (directions at end) > > Note: please reply by email, to nurkse@eng.sun.com, if you plan to > attend, and mention in your reply if you are not a US citizen > > >When the first laser printer was developed over 20 years ago at Xerox >Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the goal was very ambitious: a page >of output every second, at 600 dpi resolution. As usual, technical >problems in development forced a compromise. But not much of a >compromise, seeing the final result: two pages every second, at 300 dpi >resolution. > >Anyone waiting at a printer for hardcopy today may wonder how the very >first laser printer in the world achieved two pages a second. And >although common today, laser printers were developed almost ten years >before the PC and the Mac, in a previous generation of computer >technology. In fact, the first laser printer proposal dates back to >1967, thirty years ago. > >In this talk Gary Starkweather will describe how he led the initial >development of the laser printer at PARC. But it was a group effort: >people were needed with skills in optics, analog and digital >electronics, chemistry and mechanical sciences to make a functioning >system. Others contributed to make the system demonstrable and >functional. The talk will conclude with a brief look at where the >technology is today. > >During the talk, Gary will have the first prototype at his side. After >the talk, everyone is welcome to walk over to The Computer Museum >Visible Storage area at Moffett Field, for wine and cheese, and to view >the fifty tons of computer hardware on display (with fifty more tons on >its way from Boston)---the largest collection of historical computer >equipment anywhere in the world. Including the first laser printer >model in use at PARC. > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >Directions: from highway 101 in Mt. View, take the Moffett Field exit >(ignore any signs or exits for Moffett Blvd.). You will come >immediately up to the Moffett Field main gate. Park to the right side >of the gate, in the visitor's parking area, and go into the Visitor >Office building to get a badge and further directions. Please remember >to send a email message before the talk to nurkse@eng.sun.com to >confirm, and state in the message if you are not a US citizen. > >Zoe Allison >The Computer Museum History Center

To: Dragonfly who wrote (928)	5/17/1998 7:27:00 PM
From: Kok Chen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1600

Dragonfly wrote Apple produced the first ever printer to use a laser, a spinning mirror, and electrostatically charged toner to produce images on standard office paper. That is the invention of the laser printer. (I guess some credit should go to Adobe for creating a page description language and interpreter that could provide a raster image fast enough for the laser and at high enough quality to make using a laser relevant.) That is not correct. In the late '70s, Gary Starkweather was the first to convert an electrophotographic copier for use as a laser printer when he was at Xerox PARC (Sproul did the software). In 1987 or 1988, Gary moved to Apple and a year or two ago, moved to Microsoft. Gary had started his graduate studies in Nuclear Physics, but the world was fortunate that he switched to Optics before long :-). PARC never did commercialise the printers, but a few of the Xerox Dover printers ended up in universities (Stanford, CMU and MIT). If memory serves, they were priced at about $190K a piece. The controller for the Dover was the Xerox Alto computer. By the time Apple came out with the LaserWriter, folks like Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Imagen and QMS were already selling laser printers into the computer market for almost half a dozen years. However, these early printers had proprietary "languages" (e.g. PCL, imPRESS, QUIC). The Dover had a language called PRESS. What the LaserWriter is known for is for being the first to offer PostScript (Adobe). That, coupled with Aldus Pagemaker running on Macintosh, created the Desktop Publishing paradigm. The LaserWriter also used the Canon printing mechanism (LBP-CX) that was first to incorporate a removable toner/drum cartridge that we all take for granted today. To be historically accurate, HP had shipped an LBP-CX based printer about a year before the LaserWriter, and Imagen shipped theirs about half a year before Apple. But none of those printers had PostScript. Back in those days, PostScript offered two things that none of the other printer languages did - scalable fonts and halftoned images. Microsoft dabbled in PostScript printing for a while in the late '80s by buying the Bauer Group and its PostScript clone, which Microsoft renamed TrueImage. At about the same time, it acquired the TrueType font technology from Apple. I wonder how many people today would remember that Macintosh users had TrueType for many years before Microsoft users could enjoy the same technology. A couple of years later, Microsoft dropped TrueImage, but Apple TrueType is still being used in Windows. Regards, Kok Chen