The IBM 6670 Information Distributor is a combination laser printer and plain-paper photocopier announced by IBM on 14 February 1979 as part of Office System/6. Its feature set included two-sided printing.
The New York Times described it in 1979 as "A key component of the office of tomorrow." Although Wang was first to market an intelligent copier, the 6670 is "closer to the standard envisioned."
IBM's Office Products Division (OPD) had pursued two non-impact printing technologies concurrently during the 1970s: ink jet and laser. The ink jet product, the IBM 6640, was introduced in 1976 as the printing component of the OS/6 word processing system. For laser printing, OPD engineers drew on the basic concept of using a laser beam and a rotating mirror to discharge the drum of an electrostatic copier, developing this independently from the IBM 3800 laser printer produced by IBM's Data Processing Division. The 3800, priced at approximately US$250,000, was designed for very high-speed computer-centre printing and did not offer the quality or features required for word processing applications.
IBM's goal with the 6670 was to produce: "A high-speed copying machine that can be linked electronically to computers, word-processing typewriters and other automated office equipment."
The IBM 6670 was essentially a half-speed IBM Series III Copier Model 10 to which a laser imaging system and associated electronics was added. Due to the speed of available solid state logic at that time, it was necessary to run the photoconductor drum at half the speed of the Series III, meaning it could only print up to 36 pages per minute, where the model 10 copier was rated at 75 copies per minute. In practice, effective output was 18 to 20 pages per minute once each page had been formatted.
The key distinction from the IBM 3800 lies in which areas of the electrostatic drum the laser discharges. The 3800 discharges only the zones where toner is requiredâÂÂthe character strokes themselvesâÂÂwhereas the 6670 instead discharges the surrounding white space. Because toner flows when attracted to a charged surface, the 3800 approach can produce a dotted appearance at stroke edges, while the 6670 method yields smoother results. The print quality achieved is equal to or better than the IBM Selectric typewriter, which was at the time IBMs benchmark for letter-quality printing.
The 6670 is a page printer: all formattingâÂÂtype styles, spacing, margins, and layoutâÂÂis resolved by internal electronics before the laser begins writing the image to the drum. Toner is then transferred from the drum to paper and fused, following the same sequence as a plain-paper copier. The drum mechanism also permits the unit to serve as a convenience copier: an original placed on a glass platen is scanned by reflected light, which discharges the drum in the same way. The 6670 can be interrupted during a print job to produce a copy, retaining its position in the print queue electronically before resuming.
The IBM 6670 used a 5 milliwatt HeNe laser (compared to 25 milliwatts in the earlier IBM 3800 or 1 milliwatt in the IBM 3666 barcode scanner). As part of the printing process it used an 18 facet rotating mirror that ran at 8000 RPM. Print resolution was 240 x 240 dots per inch.
The 6670's page-printer architecture supports a range of capabilities that required new application programming to exploit fully:
Two paper drawers support combined document tasks. No envelope-feeding mechanism is includedâÂÂa notable omission given the equivalent facility on the IBM 6640âÂÂwhich limits the 6670's usefulness for automated correspondence such as programmed letter runs.
There were three models
The IBM 6670 Information Distributor and its Collator unit (the IBM 6671) were withdrawn from marketing on November 19, 1986.
The 6670 was launched through a phased introduction, the first OPD had used for any product. Rather than a simultaneous national announcement, availability was restricted initially to three cities, at a purchase price of approximately US$75,000. The phased approach reflected uncertainty about how to position a multifunction machine at that price point, as well as the need to align manufacturing output with sales volumes. The Boulder, Colorado plant received more than 1,000 first-day orders and increased production accordingly; however, customer uptake was initially slow because buyers did not know how to program their systems to drive the 6670, and OPD did not yet have trained field personnel to assist them. Availability expanded to a further six cities in June 1979, and national distribution followed in the autumn. The first year's sales quota was met on 31 December 1979. IBM supported the machine with a dedicated marketing programme named "The Printer of Choice", built around the breadth of tasks the 6670 could handle.
Uptake was hampered by inconsistent co-operation within IBM. OPD had specified communications compatibility with the OS/6 product line using 2770 BSC rather than IBM's newer Systems Network Architecture (SNA). As a result, IBM's Data Processing Division was required to announce separate programs after the 6670's release to enable SNA connectivity. An extension released in 1980 by a third party enabled "6670 .. terminal users (sic; to) send and receive data directly from other 6670s" in what The New York Times described as a form of electronic mail.
Co-operation between IBM divisions varied by product team. Those responsible for the Advanced Text Management System (ATMS) and other mainframe text-processing applications recognised the 6670's output quality and provided programming support and systems engineering assistance for joint customers. In contrast, the management team for the IBM 8100 minicomputer declined to fund 6670 compatibility, despite two large insurance companies in Hartford, ConnecticutâÂÂTravelers and AetnaâÂÂhaving each ordered both products for distributed data processing. OPD eventually funded the programming work itself, and a number of joint installations followed, though some orders had been lost in the interim.
In late 1982 the 6670 was considered by Hewlett-Packard as competing against the HP2680A laser printer. The 6670's high price and the volume of output required to justify itâÂÂapproximately 80,000 prints per monthâÂÂconfined its appeal to large-scale users.
The 6670's combination of laser imaging, multi-font support, duplex output, and landscape printing is regarded as anticipating desktop publishing. OPD's focus on large, high-volume console machines meant it did not pursue a smaller or lower-cost laser printer variant. Apple Computer and Hewlett-Packard, using the print engine of a Canon desktop copier, subsequently developed compact laser printers that brought the standard of print quality the 6670 had established to a mass market at a fraction of the price.