Technology in the 21st century: The Printer (Specifically the XEROX WrokCentre 7845i)

      The contemporary printer has made many changes and spun off in numerous different ways by a handful of companies; yet it still manages to break regularly. It's based on one of the most important technological advancements in human history, which is writing stuff down, and is also one of the oldest. You would think, after all these years, that humanity would have figured this out by now. But no. It still sucks.

      The historical origin of the contemporary printer (namely, the XEROX WorkCentre 7845i) starts with a written record of anything. It starts with how man left his mark on nature in a meaningful or interesting way. Whether it was an arrangement of rocks in a river, a humble cave abode with plank wood over the entrance and cave art on the walls, or even mutilated animals in the forest. Sure, that's a scary image. But it's also pretty interesting so it counts. This eventually develops into a more advanced version which is the development of paper and pen. The paper and pen lead to a much more organized version of documentation, which helps organize trade and mathematics and idea growth. But, of course, technology wants things to be faster! So people get better at writing language and create efficient characters to write with and improve speed further but that hits a limit too. Especially with the laborious re-documentation of things for mass production.

      So in response to this, the printing press is born! By now society has developed to a substantial size and there's a need for information to be disseminated. The printing press allows for this. People can now print and re-print large amounts of information. Great! But even that gets kind of slow for society's taste, so the typewrite comes out. And that's great because everyone can do it but it's not great for the mass-production part so computers come out and handle that. Now all information can be shared online and over email and on the cloud. Ooooo. Spooky. But the problem is that it's not tangible. People can't feel the internet. So they wanna print the stuff. Of course before this was the fax machine, but that gets replaced by email and printer.

      Now, the main event: the printer. It does it all! It can print large amounts of information at a rapid pace in an assortment of formats that can be easily edited from the computer. Different companies did different things with the printer: some adding a copier to it, others making it wireless, others making it optimal for different sizes of printing. And all out of society's need to keep disseminating information. Influenced by paper and the printing press, the printer as a crowning although sometimes deceptive achievement of man.