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Gary Starkweather, Inventor of the Laser Printer, Dies at 81

posted by martyb on Sunday January 19 2020, @05:13PM   Printer-friendly
from the dreaming-of-a-paperless-office dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/technology/gary-starkweather-dead.html

At the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, Mr. [Gary] Starkweather built the first working laser printer in 1971 in less than nine months. By the 1990s, it was a staple of offices around the world. By the new millennium, it was nearly ubiquitous in homes as well.

"We still use the same fundamental engine to print billions of pages a day," said Doug Fairbairn, a staff director at the Computer History Museum who worked alongside Mr. Starkweather at PARC. "It was all Gary's idea."

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  • (Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday January 19 2020, @06:28PM (3 children)

    by Appalbarry (66) on Sunday January 19 2020, @06:28PM (#945417) Journal

    Was I alone in mistakenly reading the headine as something like "Original HP laser printer dies, aged 81."

    Which, if you're of a certain age, seems entirely plausible.

    As Jerry Pournelle used to advise, "Just buy the most expensive HP printer that you can afford." The assumption being that it will work reliably for years or even decades.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:07PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @07:07PM (#945423)

    The primary reason Xerox printers got replaced was more resolution, color, ppm, media types, or postscript functionality.

    Sadly Xerox chose to follow the consumer printer market into crappy cartridge based designs and didn't focus enough on innovating where the future lead (away from printers) and paid the cost with its corporate existence. Gone are Ampex, HP, DEC,SGI, Xerox, all the once greats.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @08:22PM (#945454)
      +1 Sad

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 19 2020, @09:55PM (#945491)

    That must have been BC (Before Carly).