I was digging into the history of PostScript engines inside laser printers and Adobe made tons of royalty money off of that for quite a long time.
replyThey needed more memory and a faster processor as well which bumped the price up. In the mid eighties I worked for a company distributing QMS printers in the UK. A basic laser was selling for £2,000 and the PostScript equivalent was £4,000.
replyThat mid-1990s postscript, networked printer when new cost as much as a small car! The HP Laser 1000 was like $250 tops new.
replyI've always thought USB-only made no sense on a printer. If there was one device in your house that multiple computers (and phones, don't forget) would want to use simultaneously, it's a printer. I'll only buy a printer that has its own built in network connectivity. Infuriating to have to stick a Pi onto your printer just so it can do what should be basic, table-stakes functionality.
replyA usb controller is way less expensive than something that can run a TCP stack and the associated software.
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