Charles Babbage, British mathematician and engineer, inventor of programmable calculators and considered the father of digital computers, was the one who designed the first printer, which would not become a reality until half a century later, when a group of engineers took his plans and decided to manufacture it: with more than 4,000 parts and a weight of 2 tons, today it can be visited at the Science Museum in London.
A little earlier, in 1935, Chester Carlson invented xerography (electronic photography), being the founder of the Xerox company. However, since Charles Babbage’s discovery, printing technology evolves rapidly: In 1953, Remington Rand created the UNIVAC High Speed Printer, the first high-speed printer with 4 rollers and capable of printing 600 lines of text per minute; in 1957, IBM patented the dot matrix printer, with a print head that moved laterally across the paper and, in 1959, invented line printing equipment, which allowed overprinting; in the same year, the first automatic photocopier appeared, the Xerox 914 (with more than 7 copies per minute); then came the first EP-101 mini printer from Epson.
In 1969, Gary Starkweather created the first laser printer prototype, which was manufactured at the Xerox research center in 1971. This innovation was a trend-setter because it also printed images; in 1973, Canon developed color printers.
The inkjet printer was invented in 1976, very popular in small stores and homes; the daisy printer appeared in 1978, capable of printing high quality text but only writing letters and numbers; in 1988, the color toner mode was implemented with the Ricoh color 5000.
In the early 1990s, HP marketed the first network-connected printer, the Laserjet III and, in 1998, the first multifunction printer that prints, photocopies and sends faxes; shortly afterwards, new HP models were dual, with scanner, USB port and send emails; today, all printer brands have wifi as standard.
Today, the story evolves with 3D printers, which are used in almost all sectors (architecture or industrial production, for example), allowing to print almost anything on site, avoiding waiting times for shipments and saving on costs: will this printer be the one that will mark the future of printing?
Nubeprint is a manufacturer of monitoring software for printers of all makes, models and types (including laser, inkjet, large format, label and 3D). Making a bit of history, it patented the first cloud MPS solution in 2010 and, just one year later, implemented the Managed MPS Solution with dynamic algorithms and filters. In 2013, he developed the first A.I. (artificial intelligence) engine for MPS and, in 2017, ML (Machine Learning), specifically for MPS. In 2018, it patented the unique and first DCA integrated in a smartphone app. Since 2020, our ZERO Flex product allows you to configure your own MPS application, choosing from 27 Apps.
SOURCE: mastertec.co.uk/ basso.co.uk / Nubeprint
