CX PARTS CATALOG

PRINTERS AND CONTROLLERS
QMS Lasergrafix Controllers

QUALITY MICRO SYSTEMS
LASERGRAFIX CONTROLLERS

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GENERAL INFORMATION

Quality Micro Systems (QMS) was founded in Mobile, Alabama, by James L. Busby in 1977, and became one of the pioneers in the laser printer business. The company initially developed controller technology in the form of graphics add-on cards, called Magnum boards, for industrial line printers. These improved printer interfaces were popular for labeling boxes in factories and warehouses. The magnum boards converted standard character printers into graphics output devices that printed large letters for people to read from a distance and bar codes for computers to read. QMS management was early to recognize the potential of laser printers and became one of the first OEM customers for the Canon LBP-10 (the limited edition predecessor to the CX), as well as the Xerox 2700 and Ricoh 4150 printers.

QMS marketed a CX-based printer for virtually every application and market segment. This wide array of products is recounted in this and the next three pages.

QMS Lasergrafix

The QMS Lasergrafix family consists of:

QMS Lasergrafix 800: Suggested Retail Price: $6,495,

QMS Lasergrafix 800 II: Suggested Retail Price: $7,995

CONTROLLERS OR REFURBISHED PRINTER AVAILABLE

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QMS Lasergrafix Controller for CX Engines

An "External Video Controller"

At many points in this catalog, we refer to "External Video Interface" versions or the "VDO" model. The Lasergrafix controller is a classic example of an external video controller. It was one of the very first laser printer controllers ever designed. Inside the large Lasergrafix controller box are three large circuit boards, plus a fourth, smaller board for the host interface, called a "daughter board." A daughter is basically a sort of circuit card, which "piggy-backs" onto a larger card that is often called a "mother board." Many different daughter boards were designed to match various host computer interfaces. In this way, all host interfaces were essentially optional and only one interface could be used at a time.

Lasergrafix controllers were designed at the dawn of the laser printer industry: circa 1982, about two years before the CX engine was introduced. At that time, Canon was manufacturing the forerunner of the CX, called the LBP-10. Evidently, the LBP-10 was not nearly as robust as the CX and it required considerable tweaking to obtain decent image quality. Lasergrafix controllers found homes in the science and engineering departments at many colleges and universities. Custom applications were often written for things like map making. Sometimes, the only output device compatible with the application was a Lasergrafix printer equipped with QMS's proprietary graphics language, called QUIC.

By today's standards, the original Lasergrafix controllers seem ridiculously large, cumbersome and expensive to manufacturer. One has to remember that this large, external box was conceived at a time when no one really knew how laser printers were going to be used or what languages they would interpret. The flexible and expandable architecture of the Lasergrafix controller allowed QMS to change and adapt the design quickly and inexpensively as the market evolved. Eventually smaller, embedded versions of the Lasergrafix family were created. Lasergrafix-based printers were manufactured and marketed by QMS from 1982 to about 1992, when QMS management decided that the sacred Lasergrafix cow should finally become history.

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