Xerox
The Document Company, mid-transformation
XEROX
Xerox invented the photocopier, then spent the nineties inventing the thing that would replace it. The lawyers ask us to remind readers that Xerox is a registered trademark and not a verb. The lawyers are, by roughly thirty years, too late.
Nobody else in this survey can claim paternity. Chester Carlson’s xerography and the 914 of 1959 — the first successful plain-paper office copier — made “to xerox” a verb, and the 10 Series “Marathon” line of 1982–86 (fourteen models, six still on sale in 1990) rescued the company from the Japanese onslaught of the late seventies. Xerox enters our decade with an installed base that is overwhelmingly analog — light-lens optics, a photoreceptor, and decades of field-service craft — and machines like the 1075 and 1090 that simply refused to die. Litigation copy rooms ran them hard well into the 2000s.
The era’s monument arrived almost immediately. On 2 October 1990 Xerox announced the DocuTech Production Publisher — 135 pages a minute, 600×600 dpi, scan-and-print, built on the 5090 duplicator’s engine — and is widely credited with creating the print-on-demand industry on the spot. All 28 beta customers bought their test machines, which is the sort of statistic sales managers frame. Over the following decade most black-and-white production work migrated to it, at offset quality and roughly 25 per cent below offset cost.
In 1994 the pivot got a wardrobe: “The Document Company” rebrand and the red digital X (Landor Associates), its upper arm dissolving into pixels to signal documents crossing from the analog world to the digital one. The message matched the machinery — the analog 50 Series still carried the office, but everyone could see where the pixels were headed.
The transition reached the desk side of the business late in the decade, with the Document Centre digital multifunction line and the DocuPrint network printers — copier, printer, scanner and fax converging on one networked box. Xerox shipped 80 new products in 1997 alone, its biggest product year ever. By 2000 the analog copier was living on borrowed time, and Xerox had — for once, and to its lasting credit — cannibalised itself first.
Xerox — The Range, 1990–2000
| Model | Year | CPM/PPM | Notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1012 | 1986 | 15 | 10 Series small-office workhorse, still selling in 1990 |
| 1038 / 1050 | 1985–86 | ~38 / ~50 | Japan-designed mid-ranger; forms-capable 1050 |
| 5018 / 5028 | 1988–89 | 18 / 28 | Entry standard plus the ubiquitous small-office box |
| 5034 / 5046 | c. 1989 | ~34 / ~46 | Same cartridge family; the “best of both worlds” tier |
| 5052 / 5065 | 1988–89 | ~50 / ~65 | “Integrated Design Philosophy” departmental units |
| 1075 | 1982 | 70 | First Marathon; Japan’s Grand Prize for Good Design |
| 1090 | 1985 | 92 | Litigation legend; staples 50 sheets, auto duplex |
| 5090 | 1988 | 135 | Plate No. 4; the analog summit, reviewed below |
| 5100 | 1991 | 100 | First US-made copier aimed squarely at Japan |
| DocuTech 135 | 1990 | 135 | Plate No. 3; the birth of print-on-demand |
| DocuTech 90 / Network Pub. | 1992 | 90 / 135 | Jobs over the network (XNS), not just the glass |
| DocuTech 180 / 6135 / 6180 | mid–late 90s | 180 / 135 / 180 | Fastest of the line; Sun controllers on the 6000s |
| Document Centre 220–265 | c. 1997–98 | 22–65 | Digital MFP replacements for the analog 50 Series |
| DocuPrint N24 / N32 / N40 | c. 1997–98 | 24–40 ppm | Printer side of convergence; “WorkSet” stapling |
Model 914, fire extinguisher included
The origin machine, demonstrated live on television from the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 16 September 1959: 650 pounds, seven copies a minute, up to 100,000 copies a month, named for its 9×14-inch maximum original. By 1965 it was generating an estimated two-thirds of Xerox’s revenue. It also shipped with a “scorch eliminator” — a small fire extinguisher — because an overheated 914 could set the customer’s documents alight, and somebody in Rochester decided the honest response was to include the remedy in the crate. Serial no. 517 went to the Smithsonian in 1985. Every machine on this page descends from it, extinguishers no longer supplied.
The bindery moves into software
DocuTech’s deepest trick was not speed — the 5090 already did 135 — but the replacement of the light-lens with a 600 dpi scanner and a digital front end, fusing prepress, printing and finishing into one electronic workflow. Signature imposition happened in software: booklet-making decided at the queue, not at a bindery. Print no longer had to be mass-produced to be profitable. Industries are rarely founded on a Tuesday in October; this one was.
The analog summit
Launched in the “50 Series” year marking fifty years since Carlson’s first xerographic image, the 5090 was the richest analog machine of the era: automatic duplex, thermal binding to 125 pages, stitching to 70 sheets, tab and cover insertion, a 250-sheet document handler. Kinko’s ran fleets of them, and operators recall a machine that “hardly ever broke down” — the Rolls-Royce of duplicators, as the trade had it (nickname unverified as an official epithet, cherished nonetheless).
THE VERDICT — XEROX
Invented the category, built the machines that refused to die, then founded the industry that retired them. The one star above is for the trademark notices, which never stood a chance.
Three ways to buy the verb
Ten brands in this survey sell photocopiers. One sells xeroxes, over the standing objection of its own legal department. The ladder runs from a church-office box to machinery that ended the analog era it had only just finished crowning — here is where each rung was, and who was standing on it.
The entry ticket
The bottom rung barely moved all decade. The 1012 of 1986 — 15 cpm of 10 Series light-lens — was still on sale in 1990, and the 50 Series pair that succeeded it held the tier to the end: the 5018 at 18 cpm, platen glass with an ADF option and paper handling from 5.5×8.5 up to 11×17, and the ubiquitous 5028 at 28 cpm with a sorter option and an ease-of-use pitch aimed at offices with nobody to train. No finishing to speak of at this altitude; what you bought was the badge and the service network behind it.
Who bought one: the church office, the school front counter, the two-partner practice that had finally stopped pretending the newsagent’s counter was a document strategy. Against Sharp’s SF-2022 at 22 cpm — the 1992 anniversary model — the 5028 offered six more copies a minute and a service craft with three decades of field notes. Both salesmen left convinced they had won, which is the small-office segment in one sentence.
The engine room
The middle of the range was the 50 Series proper: the 5034 (~34 cpm, same cartridge family as the entry pair), the 5046 (~46 cpm, sold as the “best of both worlds”), the 5052 (“Integrated Design Philosophy”, a phrase we have decided not to investigate), and the 5065 at roughly 62–65 cpm — sorter, stapler options, and consumables shared with the old 1065, which is either thrift disguised as engineering or the reverse. ADFs were standard equipment here; the sorter was the argument, duplex the upsell. Who bought one: the legal practice, the council office, any corridor with an alcove and a budget line.
Against Mita’s DC-6500 at 65 cpm — touch screen, 6,300 sheets of paper supply, the print-shop workhorse — the 5065’s numbers were merely level; what Xerox actually sold was the field-service priesthood. Then the succession arrived: the Document Centre 220/230 (c. 1997) and 240/255/265 (c. 1998) — copy, print, scan and fax on one networked box — were built precisely to retire this tier, and did.
The summit
Above 70 cpm Xerox held court. The 1090 (1985): 92 cpm, staples to 50 sheets, automatic duplex, the litigation legend still stapling depositions into the 2000s. The 5090 (1988): 135 cpm, touch-screen control, in-line thermal binding to 125 pages, stitching to 70 — the analog summit, reviewed overleaf against its rivals. The 5100 (1991): 100 cpm, the first US-made copier aimed squarely at Japan. Who bought one: the copy shop, the print room, Kinko’s by the fleet.
If you bought one — the shortlist, 1995
| Model | Tier | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 5028 | The entry ticket | 28 cpm, sorter option, and a dealer who answers the phone |
| 5065 | The engine room | ~65 cpm, stapler options, shares consumables with the 1065 in the basement |
| 5090 | The summit | 135 cpm with a bindery in the sidecar; hardly ever breaks down |
Head to Head — the workgroup scrap
| Xerox 5028 | Sharp SF-2027 | Ricoh FT4527 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | 28 cpm | 27 cpm (unverified) | 27 cpm |
| Feeder | ADF option | ADF option | ARDF option |
| Finishing | Sorter option | Sorter option | Sorter option |
| The call | Dead level on paper — one copy a minute and a feeder acronym in it. The 5028 won on the strength of being the machine your dealer had actually seen the inside of. | ||
Head to Head — the 92-club
| Xerox 1090 | Mita DC-9285 | Kodak Ektaprint 300 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | 92 cpm | 92 cpm | ~100 cpm (6,000/hr) |
| Feeder | Semi/full auto DH | ADF | RDF |
| Finishing | Staples to 50 sheets; auto duplex | Finisher; 78 cpm in duplex | In-line finisher |
| The call | Kodak brought more speed and Mita matched the number to the digit. The 1090 outlasted both, still earning in litigation copy rooms when the millennium turned. | ||
BUYING ADVICE, 1990s
Buy the 5090 the moment you bill by the page; a Document Centre is already coming for it.
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