Minolta was a camera company first — Osaka, 1928 — and its copiers kept the optics accent: the Copymaster of 1960, the Minoltafax 41 of 1965 (the first copier that could reduce document size), the EP450Z of 1983 — the world’s first stepless-zoom copier. Through the nineties the EP analog series did the carrying, EP1030-class desktops up to the EP6000 and EP8015 — launch years, the record notes with a shrug, largely undocumented.

The decade opened with the flourish: the CF70 of 1990, “LIMOS 70” after its Laser Intensity Modulation System — digital full colour at 400 dpi, and an Outstanding Technology Prize from the Society of Electrophotography of Japan. Minolta’s histories call it the first digital full-colour copier; Canon’s CLC-1 of 1987 contests the title, depending on where one stands the definitional goalposts. The CF line ran on — the CF900 of 1996 copying, scanning and printing colour in one box.

Commercially the early nineties hurt: losses, then a hard push away from camera dependence. The answer was the late-decade Di series under the DiALTA badge — digital copier-printers with the speed stated honestly in the model number, up to the Di620 console: 62 ppm, and some 7,200 sheets aboard with the large-capacity cassette. By 2000, office equipment was nearly 75 per cent of sales, cameras about 20. In August 2003 Minolta merged with Konica, and this review’s subject became half of somebody else.

The entry ticket

The bottom rung is the EP1030-class desktop — the EP1030 and EP1031, sold into the dealer channel under the “CS Pro” rebadge, somewhere around ten to thirteen copies a minute (unverified, like nearly every EP launch year; the service-doc archives remember the machines, not the birthdays). Platen only, no feeder, no finishing: you lifted the lid, you placed the original, you were the feeder. The compact EP1050 family and the late-decade EP1080 generation carried the same brief forward.

Who bought one? The church office. The two-partner solicitor whose secretary guarded it like a font. Against Xerox’s old 1012 at a verified 15 cpm, the little Minolta gave away speed and gained a dealer who would actually visit — which, at this end of the market, was the entire specification.

The engine room

The middle of the range is where Minolta’s turnaround decade was actually earned. The EP2010–EP2080 block held the 20-class with ADFs and optional sorters; the EP2120/2130 generation closed out the analog line; the EP3000s brought RADFs at the 30 class; the EP4000/4050 added sorter-staplers at the 40 class and — a small mercy for fleet buyers — shared the MT-501A toner with the EP5000 above it. One consumable, two tiers. Somebody in Osaka owned a stationery cupboard once.

Then the DiALTA digitals arrived: Di250 and Di350 (≈25 and 35 cpm), RADF, optional finisher, and the PI3500 controller that quietly turned a copier into the office network printer; F variants added fax. Buyers were the branch office and the school front desk. Against Ricoh’s FT5535 at 35 cpm — the decade’s unglamorous hero — the Di350 answered analog reliability with a print queue, and by 1999 the queue was winning.

The summit

Two summits, really. In colour: the CF70 “LIMOS 70” of 1990, laser-intensity-modulation full colour at 400 dpi, prize-winning, and billed in Minolta’s histories as the first digital full-colour copier — a claim Canon’s 1987 CLC-1 contests, depending where one stands the goalposts. The CF900 of 1996 put colour copy-scan-print in one box (a multi-drum single-pass design, by period report), and the CF910/CF911P added EFI Fiery controllers for the network age.

In mono: the Di550 of the 600 dpi generation, then the Di620 console — 62 ppm, stationary photoconductor, 550 + 550 + 2,700 sheets aboard and an optional 3,400-sheet cassette on top. The print room bought it; so did anyone who had seen the FN-100 finisher staple a set. Against Océ’s 3165 at the same 62 cpm, the Dutch machine had the cleverer imaging doctrine — but the Minolta told you its speed on the nameplate, and this magazine scores honesty.