Photostat vs. Photocopy

Photostat

The Photostat machine, or Photostat, was an early projection photocopier created in the decade of the 1900s by the Commercial Camera Company, which became the Photostat Corporation. The “Photostat” name, which was originally a trademark of the company, became genericized, and was often used to refer to similar machines produced by the Rectigraph Company.

Photocopy

A ‘photocopier’ (also known as a copier or copy machine) is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process that uses electrostatic charges on a light-sensitive photoreceptor to first attract and then transfer toner particles (a powder) onto paper in the form of an image. Heat, pressure or a combination of both is then used to fuse the toner onto the paper. (Copiers can also use other technologies such as ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying.) Earlier versions included the Gestetner stencil duplicator, invented by David Gestetner in 1881.

Commercial xerographic office photocopying was introduced by Xerox in 1959, and it gradually replaced copies made by Verifax, Photostat, carbon paper, mimeograph machines, and other duplicating machines.

Photocopying is widely used in the business, education, and government sectors. While there have been predictions that photocopiers will eventually become obsolete as information workers increase their use of digital document creation, storage and distribution, and rely less on distributing actual pieces of paper, as of 2015, photocopiers continue to be widely used. In the 2010s, there is a convergence in some high-end machines between the roles of a photocopier, a fax machine, a scanner, and a computer network-connected printer into a multi-function printer. Lower-end machines that can copy and print in color have increasingly dominated the home-office market as their prices fell steadily through 2017. Higher-end color photocopiers capable of handling heavy duty cycles and large-format printing remain a costlier specialty for print and design shops.