The History Of Xerox Printers

A Xerox printer may be a household staple for anyone who has a computer of some kind, whether you are a PC or a Mac. You use a Xerox printer for all sorts of things; printing out your taxes so you can mail them on time, creating your own greeting cards, or keep directions on you before you hop on the bus. But the idea for a Xerox printer had to come somewhere.

It actually all started with the very first computer. The UNIVAC, which stands for Universal Automatic Computer, was one of the first ones ever created. And it was huge. About the size of a one car garage it costs a million dollars for a single UNIVAC. The UNIPRINTER was built in 1954 to work specifically with this large machine It printed 600 lines per minute with 130 character per line.

Research continued to happen on xerography, originally known as electrophotography. The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center was able to create the first laser Xerox printer. He added a laser beam to the copy machine technology and named the machine SLOT (Scanned Laser Output Terminal). The digital control system for SLOT was developed a little later on and the entire combination became a printer called EARS. It later became the Xerox 9700 laser printing system.

In 1978 the 9700 Xerox printer was introduced to the United States as the first mass marketed printer of its kind. Although it was a large machine and had a high price, it still generated $1 billion a year for Xerox. It printed 120 pages per minute, which by today's standards still makes it one of the fastest laser printers ever.

Dot matrix printers were the first type to be manufactured and widely distributed. The printing of letters were created by little dots of ink. The spacing on the dots was wide enough that they were easily visible. Dot matrix printers soon made way into inkjet printers in the late 70s. Inkjet printers were quieter and more cost effective.

Today, Xerox printers are incredibly affordable and can handle a multitude of different tasks, from scanning and making copies to even faxing. These all in one machines can do more than just print out a letter or image, but they still do that just wonderfully as well. From the biggest machines to the little ones we use today, Xerox printers have come a long way in technology and continue to get more and more advanced as the years go by.