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PHOTOCOPIERS – WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?
A snap search on the web threw up this alarming ‘fact’ – that nearly a quarter of all reported faults in photocopiers around the world are caused by people sitting on the machines and trying to take copies of their butts! It does seem weird that anyone would even admit to doing that, so perhaps that ‘fact’ is just hot air?
That ‘fact’ may be scraping the bottom of the barrel, but there are many more interesting things to know about photocopiers and their historical origins. It all started in the 1930s with an inspired patent attorney, Charles Carlson, who was also a passionate part-time inventor.
As a young man, Carlson had a job in a New York patent office which required him to make large numbers of hand-drawn, carbon paper or mimeographed copies of important documents and drawings. Apart from being frustrating, time-consuming and tedious, it was also painful for him as he suffered from arthritis. Driven by his passion for inventions, he started experimenting in the kitchen of his apartment using sulphur, zinc plates and reflected light ... to create photocopies..
Carlson realised he was onto something very important and he patented his developments as he discovered them. Fifteen years later – and much more work on the electrophotography principle – and the first commercial photocopier was produced .
He didn’t have it all his way, with major companies such as GE and IBM turning him down as they didn’t see a future for this technique. Although he had filed his first patent in 1937, it was only in 1944 when he was approached by the Batelle Memorial Institute who wanted to invest in R&D, that real progress started. Three years later, in 1947, an organisation called Haloid, which made photopaper, was granted a licence by Batelle to develop a machine based on Carlson’s patents.
Haloid named the process ‘xerography’ which led to the change of company name to Xerox Corporation. ’Xerox’ (derived from Greek meaning ‘dry writing’) was trademarked in 1948 and the first Xerox copiers were sold a year later.
Since then, there have been massive advances in copying and printing technology with a number of different processes being used. From colour photocopiers, multifunction machines, fax machines, scanners, photo printers to printers that double up as document management equipment etc – the choice is quite amazing and they’re getting faster, more efficient, more advanced yet more user-friendly ... and more affordable all the time.
Carlson knew that he was onto a good thing, and persevered where others may have thrown in the towel. He patented each of his developments, with an eventual 34 patents to his name. At the time of his death in 1968, he had witnessed massive leaps in the technology that he had pioneered One thing is for certain however, his vision for photocopiers was much, much more than the back ends of office workers. No ifs.... and no butts !
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