Apple LaserWriter® 8500

The Apple LaserWriter® 8500 is a professional-grade, high-speed, PostScript®-capable monochrome laser printer. This printer consists of a standard Fuji Xerox P880 monochrome laser printer engine with an internal Apple-proprietary controller board. The Apple controller board contains an Apple-developed custom ASIC and Apple-developed firmware, along with standard processor, memory, and peripheral ICs.

• Company

  Apple Computer, Inc.

• Design Engineer

  Gary L. Embler

• Product Design and Development Areas

  Performed design emulation and validation on the Apple custom ASIC design. Developed an ASIC and system emulation platform using a Quickturn System Realizer emulator coupled with a Sun SPARCstation. This platform supported both ASIC and firmware development and validation, and identified several major ASIC design flaws. Since these design flaws were identified and corrected prior to manufacture, the first ASICs received from the manufacturer, VLSI Technologies, were fully-functional and required no revisions.

• References

  1. "LaserWriter". Wikipedia. 7 February 2023. Retrieved 2023-05-16.
  2. "LaserWriter® 8500: Technical Specifications," Apple Computer, Inc., March 19, 2002.
  3. "Apple LaserWriter 8500: Setting up, connecting, and using your printer," Apple Computer, Inc., 1997.