The history of the first laser printer (by Hewlett-Packard) #Laser #computers @HP
Hewlett-Packard introduced its first laser printer, the 2680A, in 1980, manufactured in Boise, Idaho USA. It offered high resolution and was capable of merging graphic illustrations and text. The printer system was so good, in fact, that Hewlett-Packard used one to print the user manuals for 2680 customers.
With a retail price of about $100,000 ($365,000 in today’s dollars) and a footprint the size of a hot dog cart, the device was confined to the enterprise market, but the technology would eventually trickle down to consumers.
The first HP LaserJet (Wikipedia) for IBM PC compatibles was introduced in 1984 at $3,495 which dropped to $2,995 a year later.
The HP LaserJet 4L was introduced in 1993. It was less than a cubic foot and cost only $500.
Today laser printers are ubiquitous, thanks to that first machine from HP.
Information from the Hewlett-Packard Company Archives Virtual Vault here.
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It is really cool to see this story! I was on the team that brought this printer to the market. I was working in HP’s corporate data center (Bay Area EDP, BAEDP) as a systems programmer on HP’s Amdahl V6 mainframe when my boss came to me and said "hey, can you figure out a way to hook this up to the Amdahl to test it? The HP3000s can’t create output fast enough to get it to print at full speed."
I used a small HP3000 system, called an Amigo, to connect the 2680A to the mainframe via remote job entry (RJE) and that did the trick. I even created a means for mainframe programmers to access some of the 2680A’s features like the ability to flash a form over the page while printing data. Ultimately HP packaged an Amigo with a 2680A to create a mainframe print station.
It is really cool to see this story! I was on the team that brought this printer to the market. I was working in HP’s corporate data center (Bay Area EDP, BAEDP) as a systems programmer on HP’s Amdahl V6 mainframe when my boss came to me and said "hey, can you figure out a way to hook this up to the Amdahl to test it? The HP3000s can’t create output fast enough to get it to print at full speed."
I used a small HP3000 system, called an Amigo, to connect the 2680A to the mainframe via remote job entry (RJE) and that did the trick. I even created a means for mainframe programmers to access some of the 2680A’s features like the ability to flash a form over the page while printing data. Ultimately HP packaged an Amigo with a 2680A to create a mainframe print station.