Xerox 914 | Hacker News Reader

Xerox 914

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53 pointsmmastrac22 comments

It was the profits from this that made Xerox PARC possible, a little over a decade later. Xerox's monopoly on copiers was going away, and they thought they'd get ahead of the curve and invent the next generation of office technology.

In my 6 1/2 years there, I never met anyone who worked on optical copiers, and never went to Rochester or Stamford (although lots of friends did). I certainly did meet lots of people working on the new generation of laser printers.

> It was the profits from this that made Xerox PARC possible, a little over a decade later.

These timescales of iteration are hard to imagine for folks that weren’t alive at the time. In my mind, Xerox was a photocopying company forever (like Kodak) and PARC was just an interesting thing they did.

When you mention that these were about a decade apart, the pace of technological progress seems insane.

If you read Dealers of Lightning, you'll see that the first Alto was built in 1972. So, only 13 years after the 914 introduction.

Laser printing -- around that same time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Starkweather

Such a good book, highly recommended.

They actually did invent the next generation of office technology. They just couldn’t figure out how to sell it themselves.

Neat. This part:

> The machine was mechanically complex. It required a large technical support force,[2] and had a tendency to catch fire when overheated. Because of the problem, the Xerox company provided a "scorch eliminator", which was actually a small fire extinguisher, along with the copier.[1]

Sounds a lot like the Porsche 914 too. :)

As I understand it, the xerographic assemblies in copiers are charged to comically high voltages. The early power supplies were likely of inefficient design and magic smoked/fire a lot.

No, the high voltage was at very low current, just used to put an electrostatic charge on the selenium drum. Fires came from the fuser, where the toner is fused to the paper with heat. Paper jams could cause scorched paper and potentially a fire. Thermal fuses, switching from radiant heat to a hot roller, and lower melting point toner fixed that in laser printers.[1]

[1] https://www.wired.com/2015/03/whats-inside-printer-toner/

There's a great true story 'bout plain paper copying. Halide Xerox announced in ads that their new product would be able to copy on just paper (not chemically treated paper.) The US govt flatly disbelieved them and sent them a cease and desist such claims letter. Halide copied that letter onto a torn up lunchbag and sent the govt agency the copy. There was no response, and no further trouble from the agency. A transcendental argument (term from philosophy) in real life.

I got curious about what you meant with "be able to copy on just paper (not chemically treated paper.) ". It's a bit hard to Google since normal paper is chemically treated:-P

Probably refers to carbon paper.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photocopier

There was carbon paper, other types of treatment, and non-paper objects such as plates; think about the intersection with photography.

The "xero" prefix means "dry" which would win out over "wet" chemical processes.

Aside from the mimeograph which was odd compressible paper, the earlier copiers were really crude photographing machines, using paper that was treated with photochemicals. Smelled terrible.

Those lunchbags were BPA-free!

The story of this invention is told in the book Copies in Seconds, which details how difficult and outlandish a concept xerography was at the time. It's almost hard to believe that Carlson stuck with it for so long.

The original Xerox 914 commercial.[1] Even a monkey can use it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEM6_JB5CI

.. another very famous Xerox commercial [1]

The Xerox Star introduction in 1981 featured an appearance by the comedian who played Brother Dominic.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L0Zdu91mWo

> In the 2017 film The Post, Daniel Ellsberg, portrayed by Matthew Rhys, is seen using a Xerox 914 to copy the Pentagon Papers.

This is annoying. What copier model did the real Ellsberg use? If it was the same model, each full copy of the 7000 page study would have taken him at least 16 hours 39 minutes under perfectly ideal conditions of 7 pages per minute. Ellsberg made at least 18 full copies, and I can't imagine he didn't make at least one for himself, which, again, under perfectly ideal conditions without breaks is 13 full 24 hour days, 4 hours 40 minutes. 133,000 pages of copies spread over the 18 months (~547.5 days) it actually took Ellsberg to make the copies is an average of nearly 243 copies a day, and under perfectly ideal conditions of 7 pages per minute, at an absolute minimum took an average of about 35 minutes every day. I wonder how long it took Snowden to copy 1.7M classified documents. Assuming one page per hardcopy document and only one copy, if he used a Xerox 914, at a bare unattainable ideal minimum, 168 days 15 hours 37 minutes straight, and averaging 243 copies a day, it would have taken him 19 years and two months for each copy.

Looks like the exact machine they get installed in Mad Men. I assume the prop department did their research.

And the market rate for copies is still 5-15¢ per copy. That would be up to $1.41 adjusted for inflation!

What was state of the art tech before the 914?

Before xerox, carbon paper and the mimeograph.

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