History

History of the Network Copier

How did we get to where we are today? The history of the modern copier goes back a long way, longer then you might think. Starting  in 1887 with Thomas Edison and the invention of the Mimeograph machine which was marketed by Albert Blake Dick. Also know as the stencil duplicator it worked by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. As advertised it could do 600 copies per hour.

In 1923 the Spirit Duplicator was introduced by Wilhelm Ritzerfeld and the phase “Ditto” was coined. Unlike the copiers of today this was a wet process that used alcohol as the main component in the ink, hence the name “Spirit”

The first true photocopier came from the mind of Chester Carlson in 1939 when he invented electrophotography. Carlson’s process produced a dry copy, as contrasted with the wet copies then produced by the mimeograph process. Carlson’s process was renamed xerography, a term that means “dry writing.” And since that time people have been copying just about anything.

The Xerox 914 was the first successful commercial plain paper copier which in 1959 revolutionized the document-copying industry. The culmination of inventor Chester Carlson’s work on the xerographic process, the 914 was fast and economical. The copier was introduced to the public on September 16, 1959, in a demonstration at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York, shown on live television.

 

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The first photocopiers were called analog, and was a process that was entirely mechanical which used mirrors (and sometimes smoke if you were not careful) to replicate your original. Circa 1998 we moved into the digital era where your original was converted to digital data before it was replicated. This conversion to digital opened the door to network connectivity and the ability to print and scan with the device. The copier had finally grown up. 

The new digital age of copiers brought with it new challenges. The copier technician now had to be a wearer of many hats. It wasn’t simply a matter of servicing the copier anymore,. It required an understanding of networks and computer systems. It was from this need that AtlasStar was born in 1999

Combining talents from the copier industry along with the computer industry we have built a team that can handle any situation that may arise. Covering the lower Hudson Valley our team is here for you every step of the way. So when you see that AtlasStar van rolling down the road you’ll know we are on our way to avert another copier crisis.