Toner Cartridges and Laser Printing

The first laser printers
In 1978, a Xerox employee named Gary Starkweather succeeded in adding a laser beam to existing Xerox photocopier technology to create the first laser printer. The Xerox 9700 could print 120 pages per minute (it remains the fastest laser printer to this day). However, its size and cost were prohibitive, particularly as personal computing became more and more popular and printers needed to be marketable to individual consumers.

Desktop laser printers
In the early 1980s, demand was high for a printer that could produce better quality text and graphics than the impact printers already on the market. Hewlett Packard answered the call with its LaserJet printer, which could print 8 pages per minute. HP made desktop laser printing possible by redesigning the toner cartridge so that it could easily be replaced by the printer's owner. There are many different brands available today, all with different capabilities and toner cartridges.