HomeTimelineWelcome to the Timeline of Printers. Click a category to the left to get more details and references about a particular printing technology. Timeline Overview1930 - IBM releases Model 01 electric typewriter 1938 - Chester Carlson invents xerography process 1948 - First prototype of photocopier by Battelle and The Haloid Co. 1951 - EAI develops analog flatbed pen plotter 1957 - Transfer printing discovered 1957 - Dye sublimation process invented 1959 - Haloid-Xerox releases first production-line automatic office copier early 1960's - Stanford - developed technology for ink droplets using pressure wave patterns 1960's - Gerber Scientific produces plotters for printed circuit boards 1970's - Direct thermal printer 1973 - HP 9862A plotter released for 9800 desktop calculator 1974 - Stored energy dot matrix printer 1976 - Inkjet technology developed 1976 - First commercial laser printer 1977 - Seimens PT-80 uses drop-on-demand inkjet technology 1978 - Piezoelectric inkjet printer 1978 - First commercially sucessful dot matrix printer - Epson's TX-80 late 1970's - Ballistic wire dot matrix printers 1980 - IBM releases 5215 golf ball printer 1982 - Thermal wax printer 1984 - Thermal inkjet printer 1984 - First disposable inkjet cartridge 1987 - First color inkjet printer - HP Paintjet - |