3D Printer FYIA very short history of printing
From ink to filament.
Six centuries of humans looking at a perfectly good printing process and asking: what if it moved in another axis?
Humans spent centuries mechanizing the reproduction of information on flat surfaces. In the late twentieth century, “printing” became a useful metaphor and mechanism for constructing physical objects layer by layer. Gutenberg was not secretly building toward a bedslinger.
1450
Printing goes mechanical.
Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg’s system of reusable metal movable type and a mechanized press helped make repeatable, large-scale book printing practical in Europe. The idea was still gloriously two-dimensional, but the basic obsession was already here: turn a physical process into a machine, make it repeatable, and make a lot more stuff.
No firmware. No slicer. Probably still somehow needed leveling.
University of Chicago Library — A Short History of Printing · German National Library — European type printing
1796
Flat surfaces get weirdly clever.
Alois Senefelder developed lithography in 1796, using the fact that grease and water do not mix to create a new way of printing from a flat stone surface. It was a huge shift in how an image could be transferred, even if nobody had yet decided to stack 0.2 mm of anything on top of anything else.
Still 2D. Still no Z-offset.
1843
The press learns to go brrrr.
Richard March Hoe is associated with the rotary printing press of 1843, placing type on a revolving cylinder so printing could run much faster than older flatbed presses. Long before makers argued about acceleration values, print speed was already a flex.
At last: a machine optimized for posting speed Benchies to Reddit 180 years early.
1981
The Z-axis enters the chat.
In 1981, Hideo Kodama published a method for automatically fabricating three-dimensional plastic models by exposing a liquid photo-hardening polymer to ultraviolet light and stacking solidified cross-sections. That is recognizably additive manufacturing: build the object one layer at a time.
Congratulations. We have layers now.
CiNii / AIP bibliographic record — Hideo Kodama (1981) · Royal Society of Chemistry — An Introduction to 3D Printing
1983–1984
Chuck Hull gives light a manufacturing job.
Chuck Hull produced a 3D-printed part using stereolithography in 1983 and filed his stereolithography patent in 1984. He later co-founded 3D Systems in 1986. SLA turned computer-controlled light and liquid photopolymer into a practical commercial additive-manufacturing process.
Resin users have been washing things ever since.
3D Systems — Our Story · 3D Systems — Chuck Hull / National Medal of Technology and Innovation
1984–1989
Supports? Powder says “never heard of them.”
At the University of Texas at Austin, Carl Deckard and Joe Beaman developed the foundations of Selective Laser Sintering in the 1980s. Deckard’s 1984 concept used a directed-energy beam to fuse powder layer by layer; the SLS patent was issued in 1989.
The support material is everything. Convenient. Messy. Extremely on brand.
University of Texas at Austin — Selective Laser Sintering · 3D Systems — Our Story (1987/1989)
1987
You can finally buy the machine.
3D Systems commercialized the SLA-1 in 1987, described by the company as the first commercial 3D printer. Additive manufacturing was no longer just an experimental process—it was equipment you could put to work.
Price: considerably more than the Ender 3 you bought “just to see if you liked the hobby.”
1988
Melt plastic. Move nozzle. Repeat.
Scott Crump invented the technology Stratasys calls Fused Deposition Modeling and co-founded Stratasys with Lisa Crump in 1988. Extruding thermoplastic along controlled toolpaths would eventually become the architecture most hobbyists simply think of as “a 3D printer.”
And thus began several decades of arguing about what to call FDM when you do not own the trademark.
2004–2005
What if the printer could print the printer?
Adrian Bowyer introduced the RepRap idea online in February 2004: a low-cost, open-source “replicating rapid-prototyper” designed to make many of its own parts. The project developed at the University of Bath and became a foundational force in open desktop 3D printing.
Self-replicating, provided you ignore the motors, rods, bearings, electronics, wiring, hotend, power supply... you know, details.
2007–2008
The printer prints another printer.
The first RepRap Darwin was completed in spring 2007. On May 29, 2008, Vik Olliver’s Darwin produced a complete set of printed parts for another Darwin, which was assembled and tested—a milestone the RepRap history calls the first true RepRap replication.
Humanity briefly approaches the singularity. It is made of threaded rod.
2009
The garage era begins.
In 2009, a key FDM patent expired and MakerBot launched open-source DIY desktop printer kits built on momentum from RepRap. RepRap’s Mendel also appeared that summer. This was the era when 3D printing began escaping specialized labs and turning into something ordinary people could build, modify, break, repair, and argue about online.
The global supply of M8 threaded rod never recovered.
MakerBot — The History of 3D Printing · RepRap — RepRap history
2011
The hobby starts looking like a product category.
Ultimaker was founded in 2011 after growing out of work around the RepRap project at the Protospace FabLab in Utrecht. It was part of a broader shift from one-off hacker builds toward more polished desktop machines that still carried open-source maker DNA.
Still plenty of tinkering. The aluminum extrusion just got nicer.
2015
A tiny boat becomes a global unit of shame.
Creative Tools released 3DBenchy on April 9, 2015 as a compact model deliberately designed to expose common 3D-printing problems—surface finish, dimensional accuracy, warping, overhangs, small holes, first-layer squish, and more. It became one of the most recognizable objects in the hobby.
You could print a useful bracket. You will print the boat instead.
CreativeTools — 3DBenchy repository · NTI — The Iconic 3DBenchy Enters the Public Domain
2017
The printer starts noticing things.
Prusa introduced the Original Prusa i3 MK3 on September 22, 2017 with features including a removable print sheet, power-panic recovery, Trinamic drivers, a filament sensor, quiet operation, crash detection, and other quality-of-life improvements. The hobby was moving from “make the machine work” toward “make the machine help you.”
Wait. It knows the filament ran out? Witchcraft.
2020s
Firmware fights the wobble.
Modern printer firmware such as Klipper supports input shaping to reduce ringing caused by mechanical vibration and can allow higher printing speeds while maintaining print quality. What used to be “slow down until the ghosting goes away” became something firmware could actively compensate for.
The printer now has a vibration profile. Of course it does.
2022
Desktop speed gets a personality transplant.
Bambu Lab publicly introduced the X1 in 2022 after developing an architecture that included CoreXY motion, lidar, a multi-material approach, and integrated software. The first X1 Carbon units shipped to customers at the end of June 2022. Whether someone loves or hates the ecosystem, the launch is a useful marker for the modern push toward faster, more automated desktop printing.
Suddenly “how fast can it print a Benchy?” becomes a perfectly normal product demo.
Bambu Lab — The team behind Bambu Lab X1 · Bambu Lab — Anniversary: year in review
2025
The boat belongs to everyone.
For 3DBenchy’s tenth anniversary, NTI announced in February 2025 that the model had entered the public domain. A calibration torture-test had officially become maker folklore with no licensing leash attached to the model itself.
At last, unrestricted access to printing the same tiny boat 400 more times.
2026
At this point, is it a printer or an appliance?
The modern desktop landscape now includes machines combining high-speed motion control, input shaping, automated calibration, enclosed CoreXY designs, multi-material systems, and active toolchanging. As one concrete example, Prusa’s current XL platform supports up to five independent toolheads for multi-material work; Klipper documents input shaping as a standard motion-control capability; and the X1 generation demonstrated tightly integrated sensing, CoreXY motion, and multi-material design in a consumer desktop machine.
And somehow you are still standing there watching the first layer.
Prusa Research — Original Prusa XL · Klipper — Resonance Compensation · Bambu Lab — The team behind Bambu Lab X1
1450 → 2026
We spent 576 years figuring out how to make printers annoying in three dimensions.
Worth it.
Sources & further reading
- University of Chicago Library — A Short History of Printing
- German National Library — European type printing
- German Patent and Trade Mark Office — Alois Senefelder
- University of Barcelona — Richard March Hoe
- CiNii / AIP bibliographic record — Hideo Kodama (1981)
- Royal Society of Chemistry — An Introduction to 3D Printing
- 3D Systems — Our Story
- 3D Systems — Chuck Hull / National Medal of Technology and Innovation
- University of Texas at Austin — Selective Laser Sintering
- Stratasys — Scott Crump biography
- RepRap — About
- RepRap — Sample project history
- RepRap — RepRap history
- MakerBot — The History of 3D Printing
- UltiMaker — Ultimaker turns 10
- CreativeTools — 3DBenchy repository
- NTI — The Iconic 3DBenchy Enters the Public Domain
- Prusa Research — Goodbye, MK3!
- Klipper — Resonance Compensation
- Klipper — Features
- Bambu Lab — The team behind Bambu Lab X1
- Bambu Lab — Anniversary: year in review
- Prusa Research — Original Prusa XL