Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

has produced several lines of

printers Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer ( fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * Jam ...

in its history, but no longer produces or supports these devices today. Though some early products use

thermal A thermal column (or thermal) is a rising mass of buoyant air, a convective current in the atmosphere, that transfers heat energy vertically. Thermals are created by the uneven heating of Earth's surface from solar radiation, and are an example ...

technology, Apple's products can be broadly divided into three lines:

ImageWriter The ImageWriter is a product line of dot matrix printers formerly manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc., and designed then to be compatible with their entire line of computers. There were three different models introduced over time, which were p ...

(

dot matrix A dot matrix is a 2-dimensional patterned array, used to represent characters, symbols and images. Most types of modern technology use dot matrices for display of information, including mobile phones, televisions, and printers. The system is al ...

LaserWriter The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker, ...

(

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Doug Br ...

laser A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fir ...

), and

StyleWriter The StyleWriter brand is a line of inkjet serial printers by Apple, targeted mainly towards consumers. They produced print quality that was better than the dot matrix ImageWriters, and were cheaper than the LaserWriters. All but a few models conta ...

( thermal inkjet).

Early products

Apple's first printer was the Apple Silentype, released in June 1979, shortly after the

Apple II Plus The Apple II Plus (stylized as Apple ] or apple plus) is the second model of the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. It was sold from June 1979 to December 1982. Approximately 380,000 II Pluses were sold during it ...

. The Silentype was a

thermal printer Thermal printing (or direct thermal printing) is a digital printing process which produces a printed image by passing paper with a thermochromic coating, commonly known as thermal paper, over a print head consisting of tiny electrically heated ...

, which used a special paper and provided 80 column output. Also compatible with the

Apple III The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II series, but was largely consi ...

, the Silentype was a rebranded Trendcom 200. The

Apple Dot Matrix Printer The Apple Dot Matrix Printer (often shortened to Apple DMP) is a printer manufactured by C. Itoh and sold under the Apple Computer, Inc. label in 1982 for the Apple II series, Lisa, and the Apple III. It was succeeded by the ImageWriter in 1984 ...

(often shortened to Apple DMP) is a printer manufactured by

C. Itoh is a Japanese corporation based in Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka and Aoyama, Minato, Tokyo. It is one of the largest Japanese ''sogo shosha'' (general trading companies). Among Japanese trading companies, it is distinguished by not being descend ...

and sold under

label in 1982 for the

Apple II series The Apple II series (trademarked with square brackets as "Apple ] ''" and rendered on later models as "Apple //") is a family of home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primaril ...

, Apple Lisa, Lisa, and the

. Apple followed this release with a

Qume Qume was a manufacturer of daisy-wheel printers originally located in Hayward, California, later moving to San Jose. Around 1980, it also opened a manufacturing facility in Puerto Rico. It once dominated the daisy-wheel market. As the market for ...

daisy wheel Daisy wheel printing is an impact printing technology invented in 1970 by Andrew Gabor at Diablo Data Systems. It uses interchangeable pre-formed type elements, each with typically 96 glyphs, to generate high-quality output comparable to pr ...

engine, the Apple Letter Quality Printer (also known as the Apple Daisy Wheel Printer), in January 1983. This printer could print at forty characters per second. Also in 1983, Apple released its only

plotter A plotter is a machine that produces vector graphics drawings. Plotters draw lines on paper using a pen, or in some applications, use a knife to cut a material like vinyl or leather. In the latter case, they are sometimes known as a cutting pl ...

, the Apple Color Plotter. This printer moved and rotated four color pens along the horizontal axis, the device moving the paper into order to allow its pens to render along the vertical axis. The

Apple Scribe Printer Apple Inc., Apple has produced several lines of computer printer, printers in its history, but no longer produces or supports these devices today. Though some early products use thermal printer, thermal technology, Apple's products can be broadly d ...

was a

thermal transfer printer Thermal-transfer printing is a digital printing method in which material is applied to paper (or some other material) by melting a coating of ribbon so that it stays glued to the material on which the print is applied. It contrasts with direct the ...

, first introduced in 1984 alongside the

Apple IIc The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II series of personal computers, is Apple Computer's first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The result was a notebook-sized version of the Apple II that could be transported from place to pl ...

for a relatively low retail price, and compatible with the

Apple IIe The Apple IIe (styled as Apple //e) is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The ''e'' in the name stands for ''enhanced'', referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in ...

computer.

Dot-matrix series

Laser printer series

The

was a

laser printer Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively-charged cylinder called a "drum" to d ...

with built-in

interpreter introduced by

in 1985. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with

WYSIWYG In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...

publishing software like

PageMaker Adobe PageMaker (formerly Aldus) is a discontinued desktop publishing computer program introduced in 1985 by the Aldus Corporation on the Apple Macintosh. The combination of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, PageMaker publishing software, ...

, that operated on top of the

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

computers, the LaserWriter was a key component at the beginning of the

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...

revolution.H. A. Tucker:
Desktop Publishing.
'' In: Maurice M. de Ruiter: ''Advances in Computer Graphics III.'' Springer, 1988, , P. 296.Michael B. Spring:
Electronic printing and publishing: the document processing revolution.
'' CRC Press, 1991, , Page 46.

Inkjet series

The

was the first of Apple's line of

inkjet Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

serial printers, targeted mainly towards consumers. They produced print quality that was better than the

s, and were cheaper than the

s. All but a few models contained

Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

print engines, a few were rebadged Canon printers, while the last few were rebadged HP DeskJet printers. The

Apple Color Printer Apple Inc., Apple has produced several lines of computer printer, printers in its history, but no longer produces or supports these devices today. Though some early products use thermal printer, thermal technology, Apple's products can be broadly d ...

was the first color

inkjet printer Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper and plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensi ...

sold by

. Introduced in 1993 alongside the StyleWriter II, it was a rebadged Canon BJC-820 printer. Its maximum resolution was 360 DPI and connected to the computer via

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

. Unlike many inkjet printers of the time, the Apple Color Printer did not suffer from print slowdowns caused by slow communication from the computer performing

rasterization In computer graphics, rasterisation (British English) or rasterization (American English) is the task of taking an image described in a vector graphics format (shapes) and converting it into a raster image (a series of pixels, dots or lines, whic ...

, since the SCSI bus is relatively fast. The model was discontinued in 1994 when Apple introduced the Color StyleWriter series of printers.

References

External links

Technical Specifications for Apple Color Printer
* Edwards, Benj (10 December 2009)

''

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...

''. {{Authority control Apple Inc. printers