The story of printing predates history itself. From the Stone Age all the way up to the Digital Age, the printing craft has evolved over generations of craftsmen seeking to leave their mark on the world.
The following timeline covers some of the defining moments of a timeless trade.
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Printing 3D: 2000 and Beyond
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Z Corporation announces the release of the Z402C 3D Color Printer, the world’s first commercially available rapid prototyping device that can create physical parts in multiple colors. This revolutionary device produces parts in full 24-bit color from a range of data sources, including many native CAD formats.
This 3D printer is met with great success from many industries that were already using 3D software to build prototypes of their products and sought to eliminate the cost and time of assembly by hand.
You can read more about this fascinating new printing method here
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Desktop Publishing: 1986 - Present
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Apple introduces the LaserWriter laser printer which includes Adobe’s PostScript language inside. At the same time, Aldus introduces PageMaker (the first page layout application). Desktop Publishing is born.
In 1989 Adobe shipped PhotoShop on the Macintosh which sets the standard for desktop image processing. They would go on to ship Illustrator and Indesign which also became staples of DTP. This time frame was also marked by the proliferation of digital typefaces, effectively putting an end to the days of laying out type by hand.
The convenience and speed of all these digital tools proved to be nothing short of a revolution for the world of printing.
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Personal Computing: 1984
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Apple introduced the Macintosh to the nation in a famous ad during the third quarter of the Super Bowl on January 22, 1984.
The original Macintosh had 128 kilobytes of RAM, although this first model was simply called “Macintosh” until the 512K model came out in September 1984. It wasn’t until the Macintosh that the general population really became aware of the mouse-driven graphical user interface.
With the dawn of personal computing came a means to manipulate text and images for print applications. In the same year Apple launched Macintosh, Postscript technology was released, allowing computers to communicate with digital printers.
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Laser Printing: 1971
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The first laser printer was produced by Xerox when Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather modified a Xerox copier in 1971, adding a laser beam to it to come up with the laser printer.
According to Xerox, "The Xerox 9700 Electronic Printing System, the first xerographic laser printer product, was released in 1977. The 9700, a direct descendent from the original PARC “EARS” printer which pioneered in laser scanning optics, character generation electronics, and page-formatting software, was the first product on the market to be enabled by PARC research."
