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EARS was a networked laser printer built at Xerox PARC by Gary Starkweather and Ron Rider. It combined Starkweather’s laser-printing system with Rider’s electronic character generator, letting Alto users send documents to a shared printer over Ethernet in 1973. It was a key step in laser printing’s development, but it was not the same machine as Starkweather’s earlier prototype, the later Dover printers, or Xerox’s commercial 9700.
What was EARS?
EARS was a research printer at Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), designed to turn computer-generated pages into printed output using a scanning laser and a photocopier-based printing process. Its significance was not just that it printed with a laser: EARS was integrated with PARC’s Alto computers and Ethernet, making it a shared network printer for researchers.
The name has two expansions in the historical accounts. IEEE Spectrum’s 1985 PARC feature gives “Ethernet-Alto-Research character generator-Scanning laser output terminal.” In a 2010 oral history, inventor Gary Starkweather called it “Electronic Array Raster Scanner.” The sources do not establish one definitive expansion, so both are best understood as source-specific versions.
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How Starkweather’s idea became a working system
The copier-based laser-printing prototype
Xerox engineer Gary Starkweather conceived of using a laser to write a computer-generated image onto a copier’s photosensitive drum. The Computer History Museum dates his realization to 1967 and his move from Xerox’s Webster, New York, operation to PARC to 1971. It identifies his early prototype as SLOT, or Scanning Laser Output Terminal, and dates the artifact to 1971. The museum says it printed at 60 pages per minute and 500 dots per inch.
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IEEE Spectrum describes Starkweather’s first prototype as dating to 1972. Those dates may describe different development milestones; they should not be collapsed into one exact invention or prototype date. SLOT refers to the early copier-based system, not to the later combined EARS network printer.
Rider’s character generator and EARS
At PARC, Ron Rider developed an electronic character generator that could create patterns for characters and graphics. Starkweather recalled that Rider finished it in 1973 and that the two systems were then joined as EARS. IEEE Spectrum likewise says EARS began printing documents generated by Alto computers over Ethernet in 1973.
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That combination made EARS useful as a shared research tool: Alto users could send print jobs to it rather than rely on a standalone copier. Starkweather later estimated that it produced four million copies over the following year and a half. That is his retrospective estimate, recorded in the Computer History Museum’s 2010 oral history, not an independently audited count.
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What EARS could—and could not—print
The character generator created glyph patterns as needed, an approach that conserved memory. But it had finite pattern space. IEEE Spectrum reports that sufficiently complex pictures could exhaust that space and fail to print. EARS was a functioning networked research system, not a finished office product with unlimited capacity for arbitrary graphics.
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How EARS differed from SLOT, Dover, and the Xerox 9700
These names refer to different stages in laser printing’s development. Treating them as interchangeable obscures the progression from an early prototype to a shared PARC printer, then to limited-run successors and a commercial Xerox system.
| System | Role and stage | What the sources establish |
|---|---|---|
| SLOT | Starkweather’s early copier-based laser-printing prototype | The Computer History Museum dates the artifact to 1971 and reports 60 pages per minute at 500 dots per inch; IEEE Spectrum describes a first prototype in 1972. |
| EARS | Combined PARC research and network printer | Starkweather and Rider joined the laser system and character generator; IEEE Spectrum says it printed Alto documents over Ethernet in 1973. |
| Dover | Modified second-hand Xerox copiers made into printers | IEEE Spectrum says researchers built these in 1974 from Xerox 7000 copiers and reports Bert Sutherland’s estimate that several dozen were made and distributed within Xerox and to universities. |
| Xerox 9700 | Xerox’s commercial laser-printing system | Xerox describes it as its first commercial laser printer and gives 1977 as its introduction year; its history page also says it came to market in 1978. |
From PARC research to commercial printing
After the PARC work, Xerox selected laser printing for its 9000 series. IEEE Spectrum reported that delays while Xerox waited for new hardware pushed the new series’ appearance to 1977. Xerox identifies the 9700, introduced in 1977, as its first commercial laser printer, although Xerox’s history page also says it came to market in 1978; the company’s wording does not provide a consistent shipment date.
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“Xerox’s first commercial laser printer” is more precise than calling the 9700 the first commercial laser printer without qualification. The Computer History Museum says IBM reached the market first with the IBM 3800. Xerox’s own 2017 account says the 9700 could print 120 pages per minute and attributes more than $1 billion in annual revenues to the machine; those are Xerox’s retrospective company claims.
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Why EARS mattered
- It brought laser printing into PARC’s computer-and-network environment, allowing Alto users to share a printer over Ethernet.
- It joined Starkweather’s scanning-laser approach with Rider’s electronic character generator, advancing beyond the earlier copier-based prototype.
- Its practical limitations—including difficulty with sufficiently complex graphics—show that the system was still experimental.
- It belongs in a longer sequence: SLOT, EARS, the small-run Dover printers, and eventually Xerox’s commercial 9700.
Sources
- IEEE Spectrum, “EARS: The Story of the First Laser Printer” (October 1985).
- Computer History Museum, Oral History of Gary Starkweather (interview transcript dated 23 August 2010).
- Xerox, “Laser Printing Guide and History.”
- Computer History Museum, “Laser Printers.”
- Xerox Newsroom, “Xerox Celebrates Xerox 9700 Innovation” (29 June 2017).
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