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The Newest ImageWriter II?

Scott Baret

Well-known member
Sparked by the discussion in another topic about LC475s being manufactured later than thought, here's a question--who out there has the newest ImageWriter II?

According to most sources, the ImageWriter II was still around as late as 1996. They got the brown shipping boxes and revised manuals (there were actually four ImageWriter II manuals to my knowledge, at least for the US version of the printer). 

It would seem reasonable to believe Apple had many sitting in storage after a while. Once the StyleWriter came along, the ImageWriter II's popularity faded rapidly for most--with the exceptions being those looking to print multipart forms or banners, people who wanted a cheap color printer, and schools who already had plenty of them in the ecosystem. They were also inexpensive to network.

As far as finding late models, I personally have seen one made in 1994. I decided to check things out on eBay and found one made in April 1995. I don't think I've seen one newer. Does anyone out there have an ImageWriter II made after that? Any 1996s out there among us? I'd be curious to see when they pulled the plug on production.

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
LC475s being manufactured later than thought
It's worth noting that there's close to a 100% likelihood that the actual answer to that thread is that the machine the OP had is a Performa 475 or 476 and at some point in the intervening 25+ years the lid or label was swapped for some reason. (Likely common in any situation where someone had more than one of them.)

The LC and Performa 475 are of course the same computer, but they are different products, which is why their intro/discontinue dates can be different.

If the ImageWriter II has an explicit discontinue date listed in AppleSpec, on Apple's own KB, or in any of the other spec databases, that date is probably correct for all ImageWriter II printers, given that there's not a version of it out there that exists as a different product.

It would seem reasonable to believe Apple had many sitting in storage after a while. 
This was Apple's problem for most of the '90s. They'd have stopped making a machine but a zillion of them would be sitting in warehouses, Apple's own and those of distributors, resellers, and retailers.

Part of The Big [model] Cull in 1997 and 1998, which Apple noted in one of their annual reports from either FY96 or FY97 was sales channel partners beginning to reject shipments of new machines because their warehouses were full and/or they couldn't move existing machines. This stuff is why you'd see Macs that had been discontinued for months still on sale in catalogs and in stores.

Once the StyleWriter came along, the ImageWriter II's popularity faded rapidly for most--
That would be extremely interesting to know more on, like, for sure, with data. Perhaps an annual report would have more?

My personal favorite reference from mid-1993 has the StyleWriter at $329 and the IWII at $429, so there's definitely a budget-friendliness angle to the StyleWriter. ImageWriters are also quite loud, but I've never seen any reports as to one being explicitly more or less popular than the other.

 

Paralel

Well-known member
I'd have to check mine. I know it was the latest revision, but the actual year of production, that's a good question. I know it was a schools printer that was used almost until the turn of the millennium. Have to take a look and find out.

 

dcr

Well-known member
FWIW, I have one that shows a copyright date of 1995 on the bottom.  Is there somewhere else that shows the month and date of manufacture?

They were still used in the late 90s for printing mailing labels.  Labeling equipment would also have pins to accept the pinfeed labels, and then automatically affix the label to the mailing piece.  I think we still used a dot matrix printer (Epson though, not an ImageWriter II) into the 2000s for printing mailing labels.  I think maybe at least until 2004 or so.  Maybe.  I don't remember for certain.

 

Scott Baret

Well-known member
Ooh, a 1996! Any chance you have the week number on it?

There is still a shop in my neighborhood which uses an ImageWriter II for receipts. It's connected to a Quadra of some variety. 

 

Paralel

Well-known member
Ooh, a 1996! Any chance you have the week number on it?

There is still a shop in my neighborhood which uses an ImageWriter II for receipts. It's connected to a Quadra of some variety. 
In addition, if you could take a pic showing the date, that would be appreciated.

 

maceffects

Well-known member
I didn't realize it was so uncommon or interesting.  I know I posted photos and videos years ago on here but once the site changed I think it was lost.  The one I have was new old stock.  Sadly, I am remodeling my basement and have everything in storage.  With the project I probably won't have time to dig it up soon.  Once I get caught up I'll try to snag photos. 

 

trigf

Well-known member
This was Apple's problem for most of the '90s. They'd have stopped making a machine but a zillion of them would be sitting in warehouses, Apple's own and those of distributors, resellers, and retailers.

Part of The Big [model] Cull in 1997 and 1998, which Apple noted in one of their annual reports from either FY96 or FY97 was sales channel partners beginning to reject shipments of new machines because their warehouses were full and/or they couldn't move existing machines. This stuff is why you'd see Macs that had been discontinued for months still on sale in catalogs and in stores.
In the back pages of MacAddict circa 2000-2001, you could still buy brand new LC 5xx and PowerMac 5xxx machines from third party sellers for less than their shipping costs. 

 

Cory5412

Daring Pioneer of the Future
Staff member
I looked at a Shreve ad from 1998, but I have yet to have time to go through and look at 2000-2002 or so. I know it was around 2003 when some of these things reached their low. I mean to go through month by month and track a couple things.

As part of that, the stock moved from the main-line resellers (the ones with the big multi-page ads and their own separate catalogs, CDW, Zones, Connection, Warehouse, etc) to places like ShreveSystems and MediaGuide. Some of those places traded fairly exclusively in used computers, just buying people's old machines for cash (or perhaps for credit with a bigger name?) and reselling the machines and the parts.

I suspect Shreve's deal was that they were buying old warehouse stock from the bigger resellers, but I think they did a bit of direct purchasing.

There was also PowerMax, which was pretty straight-up about being a trade-in/buyer kind of house, I think they might have had both new and used systems in order to make their particular operation work.

Other relevant discussion about the value of all things 68k at that moment:







The other-other-other thing to remember, is that for any given machine that wore more than one badge, often one or more Performa variations lasted being built and sold as an active product a lot longer than the LC/Quadra version. (475 in particular, 630 almost certainly 5200 perhaps) and in the LC market specifically, 5260 and 5400 were each built way past their prime, to serve as the "inexpensive, entry level" model for schools, below the price point of whatever was "mainstream" at that point. (Similar to the introduction of the eMac as a cost-reduced CRT-based G4 AIO in the iMac G4 era.)

 

Scott Baret

Well-known member
Don't forget the LCII variant Performa 4xx machines. The 410 was built until November 1993 and even got the 475-style case! (Of course, so did some non-US LCIIs...I think they were in Australia, can anyone from there verify?)

 

trigf

Well-known member
Speaking of dating ImageWriter IIs, I wonder if anyone could help me figure out about how old this one on Craigslist is? I'm trying to find one of the later models but this one doesn't have a date on the model label.

https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/sop/d/gwynedd-valley-apple-imagewriter-ii/6849004968.html
I believe that this a pre-1990-ish model, as it does not have an alphanumeric serial number, but I don't know a lot about ImageWriter serial decoding. 

 
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