Dover

Dovers were very early laser printers, likely the first ones produced in any numbers. They were successors to an earlier laser printer prototype built at Xerox PARC, the EARS; they were built out of cannibalized Xerox 7000 document photo-copiers.

Dovers were driven by a special device controller card, the Orbit, in a dedicated Xerox Alto. Files in Press format (a predecessor to PostScript) were printed by a spooler, Spruce, which ran on the Alto. It communicated over the Ethernet, using the PUP EFTP protocol.

Dover production started in 1976, when a small group of researchers at PARC, under John Ellenby, began buying used Xerox 7000 copiers, stripping out the existing document photo-copying optics, and replacing those with laser output heads; the copying optics were turned back in to the copier division, for credit. An early Dover was running in 1976, and many further ones were built, starting in 1977. PARC built three for their own use, and Electro Optical Systems in Pasadena made more (roughly 35 in total), for use elsewhere, in 1977-78.

Among the most important were several that were made part of the package of PARC equipment distributed to several prominent universities as part of a grant; MIT, Stanford and CMU each received one.

External links

• Dover documentation - a large package of Dover documentation, including material on the Dover, Spruce, Orbit, the 7000 copier, etc
• Laser Printers
• Dover Laser Printer
• Xerox Dover in MIT AI Lab - the caption is erroneous; the Dover was actually shared between the AI Lab and LCS; note also the Alto which drove it, under the table