The LaserWriter was one of Apple’s most significant products, but, as you might have guessed, the
story of the laser printer starts at Xerox. Twenty years after the company sold its first photocopier based on the xerographic process, combining photography with electrostatic printing, Gary Starkweather replaced photography with a laser beam, making it possible to output an image created digitally.
In 1985, seven thousand US dollars bought you a LaserWriter - or a car.
It was 1969, and work would continue at the famous Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) to develop the technology into commercial products. Xerox, IBM, and others released laser printers for larger offices, and by 1979 the Canon LBP-10 had brought the technology to the desktop. HP’s LaserJet, based on Canon’s CX engine, followed in 1984.