Color Coordinated: The HP DeskJet 500C

The HP DeskJet 500C heralded a revolution in color printing. Prior to it, color printing was expensive and generally performed by a separate machine from black and white printing. Hewlett-Packard’s market research showed a demand for color printing if a company could offer it as an affordable feature on a machine that predominantly printed in black and white. The 500C offered that combination. Within three years, the company was selling almost four million color printers a year, and competitors followed suit.