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Gary Starkweather, Inventor of the Laser Printer, Dies at 81
NY Times ^ | 15 January 2020 | Cade Metz

Posted on 01/20/2020 10:00:05 AM PST by oh8eleven

Mr. Starkweather was working as a junior engineer in the offices of the Xerox Corporation in Rochester, N.Y., in 1964 — several years after the company had introduced the photocopier to American office buildings — when he began working on a version that could transmit information between two distant copiers, so that a person could scan a document in one place and send a copy to someone else in another.

He decided that this could best be done with the precision of a laser, another recent invention, which can use amplified light to transfer images onto paper. But then he had a better idea: Rather than sending grainy images of paper documents from place to place, what if he used the precision of a laser to print more refined images straight from a computer?

At the Palo Alto Research Center, or PARC, Mr. 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.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: garystarkweather; laserprinter; newyork; newyorkcity; newyorkslimes; newyorktimes; parc; rochester; worldimagecenter; xerox
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The obit is worth a read.
Not every man has an impact this huge and remain essentially unknown.
1 posted on 01/20/2020 10:00:05 AM PST by oh8eleven
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To: oh8eleven

Cats the world over are saddened...................

2 posted on 01/20/2020 10:04:04 AM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: oh8eleven

“The obit is worth a read.
Not every man has an impact this huge and remain essentially unknown.”

Very true. I assume this is very common.

Not ersatz.


3 posted on 01/20/2020 10:05:46 AM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: oh8eleven

When they first came out I wondered why the pages weren’t smoking when they came out.


4 posted on 01/20/2020 10:06:49 AM PST by ImJustAnotherOkie (All I know is The I read in the papers.)
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To: ifinnegan

This is the difference between engineers and politicians

Engineers spend their lives trying to invent things and make lives for better people and don’t want any attention . Whereas, politicians try to make everybody’s life miserable and get lots of attention


5 posted on 01/20/2020 10:09:56 AM PST by Truthoverpower (The guv mint you get is the Trump winning express !)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie; null and void; dfwgator

6 posted on 01/20/2020 10:11:45 AM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

How often do you see a Xerox brand laser? We had one where I worked in the early 90’s. It had an unusual straight through path, and it often burned the paper and created smoked during its frequent jams.

That said the Xerox 9700 big boy laser ( 2 pages/sec in the early 80s) was phenomenal.


7 posted on 01/20/2020 10:11:53 AM PST by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics)
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To: oh8eleven

He ran out of toner, I guess.


8 posted on 01/20/2020 10:12:50 AM PST by Fido969 (In!)
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To: nutmeg

bookmark


9 posted on 01/20/2020 10:13:17 AM PST by nutmeg
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To: Dr. Sivana

Xerox is a case study on how to Fritter away your brand. In addition to Laser Printers, they helped invent object-oriented programming, local area networking, and graphical user interfaces. Today they don’t really make money on any of those things.


10 posted on 01/20/2020 10:16:17 AM PST by DarrellZero
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To: Fido969

Interesting that the Xerox copier also has its roots in Rochester, NY.


11 posted on 01/20/2020 10:18:02 AM PST by oh8eleven (RVN '67-'68)
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To: Red Badger

lol


12 posted on 01/20/2020 10:18:05 AM PST by dp0622 (Radicals, racists Don't point fingers at me I'm a small town white boy Just tryin' to make ends meet)
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To: oh8eleven

13 posted on 01/20/2020 10:18:20 AM PST by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: oh8eleven

No relation to Charles I hope.


14 posted on 01/20/2020 10:20:31 AM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: DarrellZero

Kind of like Kodak(another Rochester company) invented the digital camera, which put them out of business.


15 posted on 01/20/2020 10:22:52 AM PST by woodbutcher1963 (HATE)
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To: oh8eleven

Yes, an excellent read, thanks for posting it.


16 posted on 01/20/2020 10:22:57 AM PST by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC))
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To: oh8eleven

There is a reason for that.

The ORIGINAL inventor of the photocopier tried sell his invention to IBM, Kodak, RCA and a couple of others.

They all rejected his idea as being a nice curiosity but of no practical value to them or their customers, and they KNEW what their customers wanted.

Finally, he went to a company called the Haloid Photographic Company and the rest is history....................

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox


17 posted on 01/20/2020 10:24:39 AM PST by Red Badger (Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.......... ..)
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To: oh8eleven

It’s staggering how much innovation came out od Xerox PARC that Xerox piddled away.


18 posted on 01/20/2020 10:25:43 AM PST by Yo-Yo ( is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: oh8eleven

Thank you, Mr. Starkweather, for your work, your doggedness, and your ingenuity.


19 posted on 01/20/2020 10:26:30 AM PST by Terry L Smith
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To: oh8eleven

I worked on these beasts in the early 80’s. Back when you fixed things that broke. I hated these machines with a passion. Constant paper handling and development issues.


20 posted on 01/20/2020 10:26:58 AM PST by IamConservative (I was nervous like the third chimp in line for the Ark after the rain started.)
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