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PrinterArchive

PrinterArchive · Est. as a public reference

The archive of printing technology

Printing history, the technologies behind it, the manufacturers that built it, and the standards, documents, fax, scanning and workflows it produced — written from sources that can be checked, and free of marketing language.

Original HP LaserJet laser printer photographed against a neutral background
HP LaserJet (1984) — the inflection point at which laser printing became a desk-side technology. Atomic Taco, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

The scale of the archive

388
Reference pages

Every one source-backed

56
Printer & fax models

Documented, never inferred

35
Manufacturers

With model families mapped

2,899
Citations

Institutional and primary

Explore the archive

Where to start

Ten sections, one method: describe the mechanism, date it only where a source allows, and link the claim to where it can be checked.

Featured archival stories

Hand-picked stories from the archive

Specific narratives from the printing-as-infrastructure record — impact-to-laser, desktop publishing, the queue and the spooler, fax in deal-making.

From the blog

Latest stories

All stories

Product & TechnologyPublisher’s ecosystem

The Fax Machine Became Software: Introducing Fax for iPhone, Android and the Web

The office fax machine has been fading for a long time, but fax as a way of sending a signed page never went away. This is the story of how the workflow came loose from its hardware — through the desktop computer, the fax modem, the fax server and internet fax — and of Fax, the HELPERG ecosystem's fax services for the web, iPhone and Android, as one current example of where that separation has led.

, 13 min read, 12 sources + 8 product sources

Read story

Panasonic KX-F90 office fax machine in charcoal plastic, with a corded handset, numeric keypad, small display and paper feeder
Pittigrilli, cropped by Georgfotoart, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Manufacturers

The companies that shaped the desk

All manufacturers

The model catalogue

Machines, recorded from sources

Specifications appear only where an authoritative source states them. A blank column means the archive could not verify the figure, not that the figure is zero.

All 56 models
Selected documented printer and fax models
ModelManufacturerIntroducedClassSources
HP LaserJet (Original, 1984)Hewlett-Packard1984Laser printer4
Apple LaserWriter (1985)Apple Computer, Inc.March 1985 (announced January 23, 1985)Laser printer3
IBM 1403 (Line Printer, 1959)IBM1959Line printer4
Epson MX-80 (1980)Seiko EpsonOctober 1980Impact dot matrix printer4
HP DeskJet (Original, 1988)Hewlett-Packard1988Inkjet printer4
Xerox 9700Xerox Corporation1977High-volume production laser printer (electronic printing system)4

About the archive

A calm, factual record of printing technology

PrinterArchive is an educational reference, not a marketplace. No reviews, no affiliate links — only structured, source-ready explanations of how printing, fax, and document technology works and how it evolved.

Read about the archive →