Photocopiers are an essential tool in education, small businesses and some home offices, and renting out a copy machine can sometimes be essential when starting up a new company, whilst you get established.
With a few specialist exceptions, most modern photocopiers are multi-function devices, capable of laser duplex printing, scanning, photocopying and faxing, often with additional options for collation, stapling and wireless print servers.
There are a lot of fantastic models available for every budget and need, but whilst the standard for offices today is to have one printer per room, team or division, there was a point where the belief was that at some point every desk is going to need a printer.
The result of this was one of the smallest and unusual photocopiers ever made, housed entirely in the shell of a laptop computer.
To say it split opinion was an understatement.
Who Made A Laptop Photocopier
The originator of such a wild idea was Canon, an early innovator in inkjet printers and one of the biggest printer manufacturers as a whole.
Canon was a company that believed that printing capabilities would be just as valuable in the home or small office as they would be for businesses, and to that end, they worked to make printers smaller and easier to use, particularly during a time when compatibility was a much greater issue.
By 1992, Canon had moved into the personal computer market, with a particular focus on the burgeoning world of laptops. Just a year later, they made the decision to make the Canon NoteJet, a hybrid printer/scanner/laptop that absolutely nobody saw coming or expected.
Why A Laptop Photocopier?
The logic behind it, however, is not quite as unusual as one might expect. People travelling for business would be expected to use a laptop to keep working, make amendments or keep in touch with the home base.
The problem is that if they happen to be in a hotel room working late at night or receive a last-minute document to print out, the traditional protocol would be to send it to the hotel reception via fax and ask them to photocopy it, often with a charge added to your bill.
Sometimes the reception would take too long, sometimes you had to print documents mid-meeting before the wider use of portable projectors or tablets to show proposal documents made that less necessary.
The NoteJet, or using a portable printer today, would let you print or scan documents whenever you needed, saving a lot of time and money in the process, using a tiny bespoke bubble-jet printer and a single sheet feeding slot that runs throughout the computer.
Why Are They Not Used Anymore?
As was the case with other printer-computer hybrids such as the Coleco Adam, the NoteJet concept did not last very long, ultimately only being sold for two years with a total of six models worldwide.
Part of the problem was the polarised nature of its reception; the people who loved it were generally in awe that it worked at all, but a lot of users who did not like it absolutely hated it.
It was expensive for a laptop, particularly bulky even by the thicker standards of notebook PCs of the era, ran very hot and typically for less than two hours, and the printer itself was criticised for being slow, loud and of relatively poor quality.
By the time it came out, there were several higher-quality, relatively portable printers on the market, including ones by Canon themselves, and most people did not see a use for an inferior printer attached to a heavy, mid-spec laptop with a high-end cost.
At the same time, the people who found a use for it, typically self-employed contractors and sales reps, found that being able to print documents during meetings was vital and extremely helpful in closing deals.
It was quietly discontinued in 1996; whilst the people who regularly used it loved it, there were nowhere near enough of these users to make it profitable.
A Quiet Legacy
As is often the case with rather loud failures, the NoteJet did end up having a remarkable footprint on the history of office equipment.
The NoteJet was one of the first laptops to use a lithium-ion battery, something that is now standard issue in nearly every portable device, including many miniature printers and scanners that, alongside tablets and email, replaced the NoteJet.
As well as this, even though the purpose was perhaps questionable, the miniaturisation of printing technology would help to inspire the wider development of standalone printers and scanners for every purpose.