Ok, so I'll admit to not having looked in detail before posting, that's absolutely my fault.
Huh -- click on "PDF downloads" underneath the picture of the printer on this page:
https://www.office.xerox.com/en-us/printers/phaser-3330 and then click on the detailed specs, then CTRL+F that PDF for "AppleTalk".
This is probably a tier down from whatever the modern version of the LJ4x00 series is, but any higher end Xerox should have this too.
TBH I
bet LaserJets have this as well, but I bet primarily at even higher product tiers. That was the thing that happened in 2006 or so is the lowest-end LaserJets went from accepting PCL and PS from the network (and having every network protocol under the sun) to host-based printing.
HP's midrange printers do still support postscript, so you should be able to print from, say, a 400-series LaserJet from linux/bsd/whatever, and OS X 10.4 might even do it if you just go "It's a laserjet 4500, please believe me
" (which is what I did with my xerox 6120 back in the day) but you're looking at a $500 printer instead of a $200 printer for that. (I'm too lazy to go look at the actual $80-200 laserjets at this exact moment but they might surprise me, who knows.)
So, some of it depends on the workflow you want. If you're fine outputting a PS file, moving it to your netatalk server and then just netcatting that PS output to 9100 on your printer's IP, then, any high-enough end printer that it accepts PS on 9100 (these laserjets, for example) should work.
So it might be more accurate to say that laser printer technology became available at deskjet prices and buying a printer like that has always involved something that's fairly tied to Windows and sometimes Macs.