HP LaserJet

[1] Canon supplies both mechanisms and cartridges for most HP laser printers; some larger A3 models use Samsung print engines.

"[5] Most HP LaserJet printers employ xerographic laser-marking engines sourced from the Japanese company Canon.

[6] In spring of 1989 The New York Times said that HP "dominates" the PC laser printer market.

The use of a less-ambitious and simpler Page description language allowed HP to deliver its LaserJet to the market about a year before Apple's CX based product, and for $1000 less.

By using control codes it was possible to change the printed text style using font patterns stored in permanent ROM in the printer.

[6] It introduced "soft fonts", treatments like bold and italic and other features including a parallel (Centronics) interface.

It also included 512 kilobytes of memory, which was sufficient to print graphics at 300 dpi that covered about 70% of the letter-size page area.

The LaserJet IID was released in the fall of 1988, It was the first desktop laser printer capable of duplexing.

[6] Retailers predicted a street price of $1000 or less, making it the world's first sub-$1,000 laser printer.

[13] In October 1992, HP introduced the LaserJet 4 featuring a Canon EX engine with native 600-dpi output and Microfine toner for US$2,199.

In November 1996 HP introduced the network-ready LaserJet 5Si,[21] a major revision and upgrade to the 3Si (IIISi) and 4Si, which had used the Canon NX engine.

The 5Si, based on the Canon WX engine, could thus provide 11"x17" printing at an unprecedented 24 pages per minute and at 600 dpi with resolution enhancement.

The HP 5Si Mopier, a 5Si equipped with all available options, was marketed as the first network printer that was optimized to produce multiple original prints (mopies).

These are mostly used in offices, and most recently in people's homes mainly to replace the LaserJet 4/5 series if the user had them previously.

In 1999, HP released the LaserJet 4050 series, which was identical to the HP 4000 but with a faster formatter and an easily accessible paper registration area (where the paper is stopped, registered, and then advanced for printing; a flip-up cover here made clearing of this component easier.)

[24] The world's first mass market all-in-one laser device, the LaserJet 4101 MFP, debuted in April 1998.

The 4L shipped with 4 LEDs, each with an icon to indicate a different condition, and a single pushbutton whose purpose varied depending on context (i.e.

A short press would provide a form feed or tell the printer to resume from a paper jam or out-of-paper condition.

Before the 4L, the control panel typically had buttons with names like Online, Menu, Shift, Continue, Reset, +, -, and Form Feed.

Users without a technical background, especially those who had not used a printer before the late 1990s, might not understand these indicators, or might think they are conflicting or ambiguous.

It has a small indicator light, and was usually used with very simple DOS programs that did not eject the last page after sending data to the printer, though it could also be useful to print the data in the printer's memory if a program failed in the middle of sending a page to be printed.

The Form Feed button would print whatever was remaining in memory and prepare the printer to accept any new data as the start of a new page.

Otherwise, when the printer is put back online, it will start receiving the job from somewhere in the middle, which will likely cause the same runaway problem to recur.)

This new Windows-oriented interface was highly intuitive and obvious to the casual user, who needed little familiarization with the printer to use it effectively.

[26] A numeric keypad and other specialized buttons are also included for job storage, copy, and fax usage on models with those features.

One can often adapt a standard 72-pin SIMM of appropriate capacity to support HP PD by soldering wires to pads, a simple task.

Some even older models, such as the LaserJet II, IIP, IID, III, IIID, and 4/4M (i.e. not 4 Plus/4M Plus), used proprietary memory expansion boards.

[30][31] Using weaknesses in the printers' Web-based control interface, attackers could traverse the directory tree of an unpatched computer's data storage, and then locate cached copies of otherwise restricted information, moments before or even after it has been printed.

[32] As of late 2011, Computerworld stated that "Millions of HP LaserJet printers" still had "a security weakness that could allow attackers to take control of" their hardware.

After 7 years has passed since a model has been discontinued, manufacturers are no longer obligated to produce new parts to repair printers.