Apple’s LaserWriter Changed Everything

The passing of Dr. John Warnock, co-founder of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Systems_Inc." rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Adobe Systems Inc.</a> and co-inventor of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpress" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Interpress</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">PostScript</a>, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">PDF file format</a> has generated inspiring tributes from news organizations all over the world. As one of the countless people who benefited from Dr. Warnock’s efforts, I’d like to share the story of how his work contributed to the creation of the Apple LaserWriter. <h2><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/technology/john-warnock-dead.html?source=post_page-----694a6c42e608--------------------------------" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">John Warnock, Inventor of the PDF, Dies at 82</a></h2> <h3><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/technology/john-warnock-dead.html?source=post_page-----694a6c42e608--------------------------------" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">As a founder of Adobe Systems, he oversaw the development of software and systems that made modern personal computing…</a></h3> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/24/technology/john-warnock-dead.html?source=post_page-----694a6c42e608--------------------------------" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">www.nytimes.com</a> The impetus for this story was John Gruber’s tribute to Dr. Warnock on his <a href="https://daringfireball.net/linked/2023/08/26/john-warnock-rip" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Daring Fireball</a> technology blog: <blockquote> Warnock and Geschke understood what Steve Jobs often preached: technology alone was not enough. PostScript was — <a href="https://www.adobe.com/products/postscript.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">and remains</a>! — excellent technology. But it was not a product. The LaserWriter was a product. You hooked it up, went to File → Print in any application, and you got professional-grade 300 DPI output with no technical expertise necessary. It was as easy to print high-quality output on a LaserPrinter as it was to print junk output on a slow, noisy dot-matrix printer. That was a product. </blockquote> While Warnock’s PostScript technology was key to the success of the LaserWriter it was Jobs who turned Warnock’s tech into a breakthrough product. <a href="https://creativepro.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/story_images/120302_InsidePubRev_Jobs.pdf" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">A fact made clear</a> in tech journalist Pamela Pfiffner’s book Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story (published by Adobe Press): <a href="https://medium.com/macoclock/apples-laserwriter-changed-everything-694a6c42e608">Learn More</a>