It may have been the size of a small kitchen, but the world's first laser printer, created by Xerox, could spank out 120 black and white pages per minute - still very respectable by today's standards, even if we've since added frills like colour, networking, IP addresses for instantly emailing documents, no PC required, and of course multifunctions like copying, scanning and faxing.

Released this day in 1977, the Xerox 9700 (pictured above) sold for $US500,000 fully specc'd (operator not included, though doesn't she look spiffy). The ticket did include a TV-style control unit, and a 14-inch hard disk platter. All up, it required a 5 meter by 4 meter floor space.

Today, a basic black and white laser printer starts at $149, and will sit neatly on a corner of your desk. And colour lasers are becoming cheap enough to challenge colour inkjets (check out the printer feature in our September issue, out August 27) at the low-end, even if you can still spend up to $10,000 for a fully kitted out, networked multifunction device at the other end of the scale.

Fuji Xerox is celebrating the laser's anniversary with an online competition and some good old fashioned cash prizes. Click here to enter.