text:
Norman Bates

Norman Bates is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch as the main antagonist in his 1959 horror novel Psycho. He has an alter, Mother, who takes from the form of his abusive mother, and later victim, Norma, who in his daily life runs the Bates Motel.

He was portrayed by Anthony Perkins in the 1960 version of Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock and in the Psycho franchise. He was also portrayed by Vince Vaughn in the 1998 version of Psycho, and by Freddie Highmore in the television series Bates Motel (2013–2017).

Unlike the franchise produced by Universal Studios, Norman is not the principal antagonist in Bloch's subsequent novels and is succeeded by copycat killers who assume Norman's identity after his death in Psycho II (1982), although he does return and in the licensed continuation novel Psycho: Sanitarium (2016) by Chet Williamson. There is a wide-ranging assumption that the character was directly inspired by the Wisconsin murderer Ed Gein. With Psycho being optioned for film adaptation as a direct result of media attention on Gein, Bloch later revealed he was inspired more by the circumstances surrounding Gein's case—the idea that "the man next door may be a monster unsuspected even in the gossip-ridden microcosm of small-town life." Years later, when the full details of Gein's crimes were revealed, he was struck by "how closely the imaginary character I'd created resembled the real Ed Gein both in overt act and apparent motivation."

Character overview
Both the 1959 novel, and its 1960 film adaptation explain that Norman suffered severe emotional abuse as a child at the hands of his mother, Norma, who preached to him that sexual intercourse was sinful and that all women (except herself) were whores. The novel also suggests that their relationship may have been incestuous.

After Norman's father died, Norman and his mother lived alone together "as if there was no one else in the world" until Norman was a teenager, when his mother met Joe Considine (Chet Rudolph in Psycho IV: The Beginning) and planned to marry. Considine eventually convinced Norma to open a motel. Driven over the edge with jealousy, Norman murdered both of them with strychnine. After committing the murders, Norman forged his mother's suicide note to make it look like she had killed Considine and then herself. After a brief hospitalization for shock, he developed a split personality, assuming his mother's personality to repress his awareness of her death and thus escape the guilt of murdering her. He inherited his mother's house—where he kept her corpse in the fruit cellar—and the motel in the fictional small town of Fairvale, California. Norman's "Mother" personality is as cruel and possessive as the real Norma had been in life, frequently berating him and forbidding him to have a life outside of her. As "Mother", he dresses in Norma's clothes and talks to himself in her voice, and he also speaks to her corpse as if it is alive. "Mother" also kills women whom Norman feels attracted to, and anyone else who threatens the illusion of her existence. Norman passes out when "Mother" takes control; after "Mother" commits a murder, Norman awakens and destroys the evidence, convinced that "she" alone is responsible for the crime.

Bloch sums up Norman's multiple personalities in his stylistic form of puns: "Norman", a child needing his mother; "Norma", a controlling, mean-spirited parent figure; and "Normal", a functional adult who goes through the motions of day-to-day life.

Psycho (novel and film)
In Bloch's 1959 novel and the 1960 Hitchcock film, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a young woman on the run after stealing money from her employer, checks into the motel one night. Norman is smitten with her, and shyly asks her to have dinner with him in the house. "Mother" flies into a rage and threatens to kill Marion if Norman lets her in the house. Norman defies her and eats dinner with Marion anyway, but lashes out at her when she suggests that he institutionalize his mother. When Marion goes to her room to shower, Norman spies on her through a peephole he drilled in the wall. "Mother" takes control and stabs Marion to death (he beheads her in the novel). When Norman awakes to discover what he believes his mother has done, he sinks Marion's car—with her corpse and the money in the trunk—into a nearby swamp. As "Mother", he also murders Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), a private detective hired by Marion's employer, days later.

Norman is finally caught when Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) and boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin), arrive at the motel looking for her. When Norman figures out what they want, he knocks Sam out and goes running after Lila, who has reached the house and found Mrs. Bates' corpse. He attacks her as "Mother", but Sam, after coming to, overpowers him, and Norman is finally arrested for murdering Marion and two other missing women. Norman is declared insane and sent to an institution, where "Mother" takes complete, and permanent, control of his mind: he becomes his mother.

Psycho II
In Bloch's 1982 sequel to his first novel, Psycho II, Norman escapes from the psychiatric hospital by killing one of two visiting nuns and donning her habit. He steals their van and kills then rapes the corpse of the second nun. Norman plans to find and kill both Sam Loomis and his wife Lila (Lila Crane sister of Mary or Marion Crane) who he believes are responsible for his incarceration but first he needs to fake his death. He notices a hitchhiker and decides to kill him and fake his own death. Unbeknown to Norman the hitchhiker is planning to attack this nun and steal her van. Norman tries to attack his passenger but is overpowered. This in turn causes a fiery accident where the hitchhiker escapes, but Norman dies. Meanwhile, Dr. Adam Claiborne, who discovered Norman's corpse, assumes his personality and goes on a killing spree.

Psycho House
In Bloch's 1991 sequel to his second novel, Psycho House, Norman appears only as a novelty animatronic on display in the Bates Motel, which has been converted into a tourist attraction.

Danganronpa Kirigiri
In the second volume of Takekuni Kitayama's 2013 Danganronpa Kirigiri light novel series, a prequel to the 2010 video game Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, the events of Psycho and Psycho House are depicted as having taken place in the past of the world of Danganronpa. Twenty years after Norman's death, the reinvented Bates Motel operates as a tourist attraction, now known as the Norman Hotel. It eventually closes, however, following a series of mysterious suicides and murders taking place in its vicinity, said to be committed by Norman's ghost.

By the time of the present day narrative of the novel, the hotel is used by the Victims Catharsis Committee (VCC) for their Duel Noir program, intended for victims of crimes to get revenge against the criminals who wronged them. In the novel, Kyoko Kirigiri and her assistant Yui Samidare find themselves participants of the Duel Noir, with an LCD screen of Norman's image (an evolution of his animatronic form, initially mistaken for a "talking painting") uttering lines recorded in the original Norman's voice to speak on the behalf the VCC. After explaining the game's rules, Norman leads a maid to her death via a burning gun-trap situated under his painting, before announcing that he has to leave to go find his mother. He then "leaves" the painting, and the rest of the Duel Noir is hosted by Norman's "family".

Psycho: Sanitarium
In Chet Williamson's 2016 prequel to the second novel, Psycho: Sanitarium, Dr. Felix Reed tries to bring Norman out of a catatonic state. Sanitarium introduces Robert Newman, Norman's twin brother who was taken away at birth after the attending doctor pronounced him brain damaged. As Robert and Norman get to know each other, Norman senses a darkness in Robert, even deeper than that which has lurked in Norman himself. Disappearances begin occurring in the asylum, with the victims being those that were a threat towards Norman and wanted to bring him harm. It is revealed that Robert Newman is a new split personality of Norman's, which was created by Reed through hypnosis in order to get Norman to kill the asylum's most violent patients. With the help of his "Mother" personality (that Norman has been trying to suppress throughout most of the novel), the Robert persona is destroyed and Mother stabs Reed to death. The incident traumatizes Norman and puts him back into a catatonic state.

Psycho II
In 1983's Psycho II, the first sequel to the original film, Norman is released from the institution twenty-two years after his arrest, seemingly cured. Sam Loomis has passed away at this point. Norman meets Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly)—later revealed to be Mary Loomis, Lila and Sam Loomis's daughter and Marion Crane's niece—and falls in love with her. However, a series of mysterious murders occurs, as well as strange appearances and messages from his mother, and Norman slowly loses his grip on sanity. The mysterious appearances and messages turn out to be a plot by Lila to drive him insane again in order to get him recommitted. The actual murders turn out to be the work of Norman's coworker, Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar). Before Norman discovers this, however, Mary Loomis is shot dead by the police during a confrontation with Norman, and Mrs. Spool murders Lila. When Spool tells Norman that she is his real mother, he kills her and embalms her corpse while assuming the "Mother" personality once again.

Psycho III
In 1986's Psycho III, set a month later, Norman continues to struggle, unsuccessfully, against "Mother"'s dominion. He also finds another love interest named Maureen Coyle (Diana Scarwid), who eventually dies at "Mother"'s hand. In the film, Mrs. Spool's corpse is first discovered by sleazy musician Duane Duke (Jeff Fahey), whom Norman kills when Duke tries to use the discovery to blackmail Norman. Tracy Venable (Roberta Maxwell), a reporter interested in Norman's case, finds out that Spool was in fact Norman's aunt—Norma Bates' sister—who was in love with Norman's father and killed him when he chose Norma over her. She then kidnapped the child Norman, believing him to be her own, but she was arrested and institutionalized, leaving Norman to be raised by Norma.

"Mother" orders Norman to kill Tracy, but in the end he destroys Spool's corpse, attempting to break free of her control. He is then arrested and put back in the institution.

Psycho IV: The Beginning
Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990), the final film in the series, retcons the revelations of the second film and third film, supplying that Norman's father was stung to death by bees and removing all references to Emma Spool. In this film, Norman has been released from an institution, and is married to one of the hospital's psychologists, a woman named Connie (Donna Mitchell). When his wife becomes pregnant, he lures her to his mother's house and tries to kill her, wanting to prevent another of his "cursed" line from being born into the world; the film implies that Mrs. Bates (Olivia Hussey) suffered from schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder and passed the illnesses on to her son. However, he relents at the last minute, when Connie professes her love for him. He then burns the house down in an attempt to free himself of his past. During the attempt, he is tormented by hallucinations of "Mother" and several of his victims, becoming injured in a fall. He almost dies in the flames before willing himself to get out, apparently defeating his illness at long last; he is finally free of his mother's voice, which demands to be let out. This was Anthony Perkins' final performance as Norman Bates; Henry Thomas portrayed Norman as a teenager.

Bates Motel (film)
In the 1987 television spin-off movie and series pilot Bates Motel, Norman is never released from the institution after his first incarceration. He befriends Alex West (Bud Cort), a fellow inmate who had murdered his stepfather, and wills ownership of the titular motel to him before dying of old age.

Bates Motel (TV series)
The television series Bates Motel, a reboot to the 1960 film Psycho, set in the present day, depicts the young Norman Bates' life with his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga). In this continuity, Norman suffers from hallucinations and blackouts, and begins manifesting his "Mother" personality while Norma is alive. He kills his abusive father, Sam (David Cubitt), while in a dissociative state, and Norma moves them from Arizona, where he was born and raised, to White Pine Bay, Oregon, to protect him. The series also introduces his maternal half-brother, Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot) and gives him a love interest in Emma Decody (Olivia Cooke), a classmate with cystic fibrosis.

As "Mother", Norman murders Blaire Watson (Keegan Connor Tracy), one of his teachers who seduces him; Bradley Martin (Nicola Peltz), a girl he has feelings for; and Audrey Ellis Decody (Karina Logue), Emma's estranged mother. Fearing for his sanity, Norma briefly has him committed to a mental institution. While there, Norman recovers a memory of witnessing his father rape Norma in a drunken rage after she tried to leave him; it is implied that this trauma fractured his psyche.

When Norman's sanity begins to deteriorate, Norma marries the town sheriff, Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell), so she can use his insurance coverage to pay for Norman's treatment. While the marriage is at first merely a financial arrangement, they eventually fall in love. After Norman is released from the institution and finds out that Norma is married, he grows insanely jealous and tries to kill both Norma and himself by flooding the house with carbon monoxide while his mother sleeps. Romero arrives at the house in time to revive Norman, but finds that Norma is already dead. Romero figures out what happened and swears revenge, but is arrested for perjury before he can do anything. Meanwhile, Norman cannot bear losing his mother, so he digs up her corpse and assumes her personality to preserve the illusion of her being alive.

Two years later, Norman is running the motel and living alone in the house with Norma's corpse, which he keeps frozen and preserved in the cellar. He and his "Mother" personality live together as if there is no one else in the world, and she takes care of his problems - such as killing and disposing of a hitman sent by Romero and helping him get rid of his uncle, Norma's brother Caleb (Kenny Johnson), after he discovers the truth. Norman falls for Madeline Loomis (Isabelle McNally), a lonely woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Norma, and whose husband Sam (Austin Nichols) is cheating on her. "Mother" becomes jealous and starts behaving erratically, at one point taking possession of Norman's mind and making him have sex with a man at a gay bar while dressed in Norma's clothes. Norman finally begins to suspect that "Mother" is not real, and she confirms that he created her in his mind to deal with things that he could not, such as his abusive father.

When Sam's mistress Marion Crane (Rihanna) checks into the motel, Norman has dinner with her and tells her that Sam is married. Marion comes back to the motel after confirming Sam's infidelity, and seeks comfort from Norman. He fears that "Mother" will kill her, however, and tells her to leave and never come back. When Sam comes to the motel to look for Marion, Norman stabs him to death in the shower.

Dylan comes to see Norman after learning of Norma's death, and they get into a fight that ends with Norman assaulting his half-brother at "Mother"'s instigation. Terrified of what he might do, Norman calls 911 and confesses to murdering Sam. While he is in jail, Sheriff Jane Greene (Brooke Smith) finds the bodies of Norman's other victims, and charges him with their murders, as well. While Norman is awaiting trial, Romero—who had earlier escaped from prison—breaks into his cell and takes him hostage. They drive to the woods where Norman hid Norma's corpse after the police began searching his house. There, Norman gets the better of Romero and shoots him dead, but not before his former stepfather tells him he will never escape from murdering his own mother. When Norman finally admits to himself that he killed Norma, "Mother" appears to him and tells him she is leaving, as there is no longer anything she can protect him from.

Now completely alone, Norman loses all contact with reality. He calls Dylan and invites him over for a "family dinner", complete with Norma's corpse seated at the head of the table. When Dylan tells him that Norma is dead, Norman flies into a rage and attacks him with a knife, forcing Dylan to shoot him in self-defense. As he dies, Norman sees a vision of his mother embracing him.

Characterization
The character Norman Bates in Psycho was loosely based on two people. First was the real-life murderer Ed Gein, about whom Bloch later wrote a fictionalized account, "The Shambles of Ed Gein", in 1962. (The story can be found in Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3). Second, it has been indicated by several people, including Noel Carter (wife of Lin Carter) and Chris Steinbrunner, as well as allegedly by Bloch himself, that Norman Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher of Castle of Frankenstein.

The characterization of Norman Bates in the novel and the movie differ in some key areas. In the novel, Norman is in his mid-to-late 40s, short, overweight and homely. In the movie, he is in his mid-20s, tall, slender, and handsome. Reportedly, when working on the film, Hitchcock decided that he wanted audiences to be able to sympathize with Norman and genuinely like the character, so he made him more of a "boy next door". In the novel, Norman becomes "Mother" after getting drunk and passing out; in the movie, he remains sober before switching personalities.

In the novel, Norman is well-read in occult and esoteric authors such as P.D. Ouspensky and Aleister Crowley. He is aware that "Mother" disapproves of these authors as being against religion.

Portrayals
Norman Bates was portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock's seminal 1960 film adaptation of Bloch's novel and its three sequels. Perkins hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1976 in which he performed numerous sketches portraying Norman, including the instructional video "The Norman Bates School of Motel Management". He also portrayed Norman, albeit more lightheartedly, in a 1990 commercial for Oatmeal Crisp cereal. Vince Vaughn portrayed Norman in Gus Van Sant's 1998 version of Psycho, while Kurt Paul, Perkins' "Mother" stunt double in Psycho II and Psycho III, took on the role in the made-for-TV film spin-off Bates Motel. Perkins' son Oz portrayed a younger version of Norman in Psycho II. Henry Thomas played a younger version of the character in Psycho IV: The Beginning. Freddie Highmore portrayed Norman in the TV series Bates Motel, with Vera Farmiga portraying both Norman's mother Norma and his murderous split personality "Mother". For his performance, Highmore was nominated twice for a Critic's Choice Award, a Saturn Award, and won a People's Choice Award in 2017.

Comic books
Norman appears in the 1992 three-issue comic book adaptation of the 1960 film Psycho released by Innovation Publishing. Despite being a colorized adaptation of the Hitchcock film, the version of Norman present in the comics resembles the one from Bloch's original novel: a middle-aged, overweight, balding man. Comic artist Felipe Echevarria has explained that this was due to Perkins' refusal to allow his likeness to be replicated for the books, wanting to disassociate himself with Norman Bates.

Novels

 * Psycho (1959), by Robert Bloch
 * Psycho II (1982), by Robert Bloch
 * Psycho House (1990, as an animatronic), by Robert Bloch
 * Suspects (1985), by David Thomson
 * Danganronpa Kirigiri 2 (2013, as an animatronic, painting), by Takekuni Kitayama
 * Psycho: Sanitarium (2016), by Chet Williamson

Films

 * Psycho (1960)
 * Psycho II (1983)
 * Psycho III (1986)
 * Bates Motel (1987)
 * Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
 * Psycho (1998)

Television

 * Bates Motel (2013–2017)

Comics

 * Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1992)

Music

 * Norman Bates, by John L. Walters, a single and album track by Landscape (band) (1981)
 * Bates Motel, a single by The Hitmen (1981)
 * A Shower with Norman Bates, a single and album track by French band Etienne et Moi for their album Norman Bates (2006)
 * The Shower Scene, an album track by Ice Nine Kills for their album The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood (2021)

Reception
Norman Bates is ranked as the second-greatest villain on the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 film heroes and villains, behind Hannibal Lecter and ahead of Darth Vader. His line "A boy's best friend is his mother" also ranks as number 56 on the institute's list of the 100 greatest movie quotes. In 2008, Norman Bates was selected by Empire as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters. In 2009, Total Film issued it's "The 150 Greatest Performances of All Time" list, ranking Perkins' performance in Psycho at 27th place. Bates also ranked number 4 on Premiere magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

title: Norman Bates


text:
Frederick, Prince of Wales

Frederick, Prince of Wales (Frederick Louis, Friedrich Ludwig; 31 January 1707 – 31 March 1751) was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George II of Great Britain. He grew estranged from his parents, King George and Queen Caroline. Frederick was the father of King George III.

Under the Act of Settlement passed by the English Parliament in 1701, Frederick was fourth in the line of succession to the British throne at birth, after his great-grandmother Sophia, Dowager Electress of Hanover; his grandfather George, Prince-Elector of Hanover; and his father, George. The Elector ascended the British throne in 1714. After his grandfather died and his father became king in 1727, Frederick moved to Great Britain and was created Prince of Wales in 1729. He predeceased his father, however, and upon the latter's death in 1760, the throne passed to Frederick's eldest son, George III.

Early life
Prince Frederick Louis was born on 31 January 1707 in Hanover, Holy Roman Empire (Germany), as Duke Friedrich Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneburg, to Caroline of Ansbach and Prince George, son of George, Elector of Hanover. The Elector was also one of Frederick's two godfathers, as well as the son of Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James VI and I and first cousin once removed and heir presumptive to Queen Anne of Great Britain. However, Sophia died before Anne, in June 1714 when aged 83, which elevated the Elector to heir-presumptive; Queen Anne died on 1 August the same year, and Sophia's son became King George I. This made Frederick's father first-in-line to the British throne and Frederick himself second-in-line. Frederick's other godfather was his great-uncle Frederick I, King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia. Frederick was nicknamed "Griff" within the family.

In the year of Anne's death and the coronation of George I, Frederick's parents, George, Prince of Wales (later George II), and Caroline of Ansbach, were called upon to leave Hanover for Great Britain when Frederick was only seven years old. He was left in the care of his grand-uncle Ernest Augustus, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück, and did not see his parents again for 14 years.

In 1722, Frederick was inoculated against smallpox by Charles Maitland on the instructions of his mother, Caroline. His grandfather George I created him Duke of Edinburgh, Marquess of the Isle of Ely, Earl of Eltham in the county of Kent, Viscount of Launceston in the county of Cornwall, and Baron of Snaudon in the county of Carnarvon, on 26 July 1726. The latter two titles have been interpreted differently since: the ofs are omitted and Snaudon rendered as Snowdon.

Frederick arrived in Great Britain in 1728, the year after his father had become King George II. By then, George and Caroline had had several younger children, and Frederick was a high-spirited young man fond of drinking, gambling and women. The long separation had damaged the relationship with his parents, and they would never be close to him. That year also saw the foundation of Fredericksburg, Virginia, which was named after him —his other namesakes are Prince Frederick, Maryland (1722); Fort Frederick, Maine (1729–30); Fort Frederick, South Carolina (1730–34); Fort Frederick, New York (completed 1735); and Fort Frederica, Georgia (founded 1736); while Fort Frederick, Maryland; Point Frederick, Ontario; Fort Frederick, Ontario; and Fort Frederick, New Brunswick were also named after him posthumously.

Prince of Wales
The motives for the ill-feeling between Frederick and his parents may have included the fact that he had been set up by his grandfather, even as a small child, as the representative of the House of Hanover, and was used to presiding over official occasions in the absence of his parents. He was not permitted to go to Great Britain until after his father took the throne as George II on 11 June 1727. Frederick had continued to be known as Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hanover (with his British HRH style) even after his father had been created Prince of Wales.

Frederick was created Prince of Wales on 7 January 1729. He served as the tenth chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1728 to 1751, and a portrait of him still enjoys a commanding position in the Hall of Trinity College Dublin.

Once established in London, Frederick sponsored a court of 'opposition' politicians. They supported the Opera of the Nobility in Lincoln's Inn Fields as a rival to George Frideric Handel's royally sponsored opera at the King's Theatre in the Haymarket. Frederick was a lover of music who played the viola and cello; he is depicted playing a cello in three portraits by Philippe Mercier of Frederick and his sisters. He enjoyed the natural sciences and the arts, and became a thorn in the side of his parents, making a point of opposing them in everything, according to the court gossip Lord Hervey. At court, the favourite of George II and Queen Caroline was Frederick's younger brother, Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, to the extent that the king looked into ways of splitting his domains so that Frederick would succeed only in Britain, while Hanover would go to William.

Hervey and Frederick (using a pseudonym "Captain Bodkin") wrote a theatrical comedy which was staged at the Drury Lane Theatre in October 1731. It was panned by the critics, and even the theatre's manager thought it so bad that it was unlikely to play out even the first night. He had soldiers stationed in the audience to maintain order, and when the play flopped, the audience were given their money back. Hervey and Frederick also shared a mistress, Anne Vane, who had a son called FitzFrederick Vane in June 1732. Either of them or William Stanhope, 1st Earl of Harrington, another of her lovers, could have been the father. Jealousy between Frederick and Hervey may have contributed to a breach, and their friendship ended. Hervey later wrote bitterly that Frederick was "false ... never having the least hesitation in telling any lie that served his present purpose."

Patron of the arts
A permanent result of Frederick's patronage of the arts is "Rule, Britannia!", one of the best-known British patriotic songs. It was composed by the English composer Thomas Arne with words written by the Scottish poet and playwright James Thomson as part of the masque Alfred, which was first performed on 1 August 1740 at Cliveden. Thomas Arne was also one of Frederick's favourite artists. A masque linking the prince with both the Saxon hero-king Alfred the Great's victories over the Vikings and with the contemporary issue of building up British sea power accorded well with Frederick's political plans and aspirations. Later, the song gained a life of its own outside of the masque. Thomson, who supported the Prince of Wales politically, also dedicated an earlier work dedicated to him: Liberty (1734). Unlike the king, Frederick was a knowledgeable amateur of painting, patronising immigrant artists such as Jacopo Amigoni and Jean-Baptiste van Loo, who painted the portraits of the prince and his consort for Frederick's champion William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath. The list of other artists whom he employed—Philippe Mercier, John Wootton, George Knapton, and the engraver Joseph Goupy—includes some of the principal painters of the English Rococo. The prince was also crucially important in furthering the popularity of the Rococo style in the decorative arts, with a clear predilection for French Huguenot craftsmen. He patronised silversmiths such as Nicolas Sprimont (1713–1771), "toyshop" owners such as Paul Bertrand, and also carvers and gilders. The most notable of the latter was Paul Petit (1729–c. 1756) who first worked for the prince on William Kent's neo-Palladian state barge of 1732, which is still preserved in the National Maritime Museum. Petit worked on a handful of magnificent trophy frames in the Rococo style for Frederick, which are among the most significant remaining testaments to the prince's patronage of the decorative arts. One frame, made in 1748 for his namesake cousin Frederick the Great of Prussia, was especially lavish and represented the esteem in which the prince held his cousin. This suggests the prince identified with Frederick the Great's style of enlightened rule, more than that of his own father George II. Petit's frame contained a portrait of Frederick the Great painted by Antoine Pesne, and remains today in the British Royal Collection.

None of Frederick's homes are now left standing except for the country residence of Cliveden, which is in a much altered state. His London residences (Norfolk House, Carlton House, Leicester House, and Kew House or the White House) have all been demolished.

Domestic life
Negotiations between George II and his first cousin and brother-in-law Frederick William I of Prussia on a proposed marriage between the Prince of Wales and Frederick William's daughter Wilhelmine were welcomed by Frederick even though the couple had never met. George II was not keen on the proposal but continued talks for diplomatic reasons. Frustrated by the delay, Frederick sent an envoy of his own to the Prussian court. When George II discovered the plan, he immediately arranged for Frederick to leave Hanover for England. The marriage negotiations foundered when Frederick William demanded that Frederick be made Regent in Hanover.

Frederick also almost married Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland and Lady Anne Churchill. Lady Diana was the favourite grandchild of the powerful Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough. The duchess sought a royal alliance by marrying Lady Diana to the Prince of Wales with a massive dowry of £100,000. The prince, who was in great debt, agreed to the proposal, but the plan was vetoed by Robert Walpole and the king. Lady Diana soon married John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford.

Although in his youth he was a spendthrift and womaniser, Frederick settled down following his marriage to the sixteen-year-old Augusta of Saxe-Gotha on 27 April 1736. The wedding was held at the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace in London, presided over by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London and Dean of the Chapel Royal. Handel provided the new anthem 'Sing unto God' for the service, and the wedding was also marked in London by two rival operas, Handel's Atalanta and Porpora's La festa d'Imeneo.

In May 1736, George II returned to Hanover, which was unpopular in England. A satirical notice was pinned to the gates of St James's Palace decrying his absence: "Lost or strayed out of this house", it read, "a man who has left a wife and six children on the parish." The King made plans to return, in the face of inclement weather; when his ship was caught in a storm, gossip swept London that he had drowned. Eventually, in January 1737, he arrived back in England. Immediately he fell ill, with piles and a fever, and withdrew to his bed. The Prince of Wales put it about that the King was dying, with the result that George insisted on getting up and attending a social event to disprove the gossip-mongers.

Quickly accumulating large debts, Frederick relied for an income on his wealthy friend George Bubb Dodington. The prince's father refused to make him a financial allowance of the size that the prince considered should have been his. Frederick's public opposition to his father's government continued; he opposed the unpopular Gin Act 1736, which tried to control the Gin Craze. Frederick applied to Parliament for an increased financial allowance, and public disagreement over the payment of the money drove a further wedge between parents and son. Frederick's allowance was raised, but by less than he had asked for.

In June 1737, Frederick informed his parents that Augusta was pregnant, and was due to give birth in October. Traditionally, royal births were witnessed by members of the family and senior courtiers to guard against supposititious children. But in fact, Augusta's due date was earlier. When she went into labour in July the Prince sneaked her out of Hampton Court Palace in the middle of the night, and forced her to ride 21 km in a rattling carriage to St James's Palace, so that the King and Queen could not be present at the birth. When they learned of the Prince's action, George and Caroline were horrified. With a party including two of her daughters and Lord Hervey, the Queen rushed to St James. There, Caroline was relieved to discover that Augusta had given birth to a "poor, ugly little she-mouse" rather than a "large, fat, healthy boy". That made a supposititious child unlikely, since the baby was so pitiful. The circumstances of the birth deepened the estrangement between mother and son.

Frederick was banished from the king's court, and a rival court grew up at Frederick's new residence, Leicester House, where his father and mother had themselves lived after becoming estranged from George I. His mother fell fatally ill at the end of the year, but the king refused Frederick permission to see her. Frederick became a devoted family man, taking his wife and children to live in the countryside at Cliveden, where he fished, shot, and rowed. In 1742, Robert Walpole left office, and the realignment of the government led to a reconciliation between father and son, as Frederick's friends in Parliament gained influence.

After the Jacobite Rising of 1745, Frederick met Flora MacDonald, who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for aiding the escape of the Rising's leader Charles Edward Stuart, and helped to secure her eventual release. In 1747, Frederick rejoined the political opposition, and the king responded by dissolving Parliament. In the subsequent early general election, Frederick's allies lost.

Cricket
By the time Frederick arrived in Great Britain, cricket had developed into the country's most popular team sport, and it thrived on gambling. Perhaps because he wished to anglicise and so fit in with society, Frederick developed an academic interest in cricket and soon became a genuine enthusiast. He began to make wagers and then to patronise and play the sport, even forming his own team on several occasions.

The earliest mention of Frederick in cricket annals is in a contemporary report of a match on 28 September 1731 between Surrey and London, played on Kennington Common. No post-match report was found despite advance promotion as "likely to be the best performance of this kind that has been seen for some time". The records show that "for the convenience of the gamesters, the ground is to be staked and roped out" – a new practice in 1731 and possibly done partly for the benefit of a royal visitor. The advertisement refers to "the whole county of Surrey" as London's opponents and states that the Prince of Wales is "expected to attend".

In August 1732, the Whitehall Evening Post reported that Frederick attended "a great cricket match" at Kew on 27 July.

By the 1733 season, Frederick was seriously involved in the game, in effect as a county cricketer for Surrey. He was said to have given a guinea to each player in a Surrey vs. Middlesex game at Moulsey Hurst. Then he awarded a silver cup to a combined Surrey and Middlesex team which had just beaten Kent, arguably the best county team at the time, at Moulsey Hurst on 1 August. This is the first reference in cricket history to any kind of trophy (other than hard cash) being contested. On 31 August, the Prince of Wales XI played Sir William Gage's XI on Moulsey Hurst. The result is unknown but the teams were said to be of county standard, so presumably it was in effect a Surrey vs. Sussex match.

In the years following 1733, there are frequent references to the Prince of Wales as a patron of cricket and as an occasional player.

When he died on 31 March 1751, cricket suffered a double blow as his death closely followed that of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond, the game's greatest financial patron at the time. The number of top-class matches declined for several years.

Death
His political ambitions unfulfilled, Frederick died at Leicester House at the age of 44 on 31 March 1751 (20 March OS). In the past this has been attributed to a burst lung abscess caused by a blow from a cricket or a real tennis ball, but it is now thought to have been from a pulmonary embolism. He was buried at Westminster Abbey on 13 April 1751. He is the most recent Prince of Wales not to have acceded to the British throne.

The Prince of Wales's epigram (quoted by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Four Georges"): "Here lies poor Fred who was alive and is dead, Had it been his father I had much rather,  Had it been his sister nobody would have missed her,  Had it been his brother, still better than another,  Had it been the whole generation, so much better for the nation,  But since it is Fred who was alive and is dead,  There is no more to be said!"

British titles
He was given the title Duke of Gloucester on 10 January 1717, but when he was raised to the peerage on 26 July 1726 it was as Duke of Edinburgh. He became Duke of Cornwall on 11 June 1727 and Prince of Wales on 7 January 1729.

Honours

 * 3 July 1717: Royal Knight of the Garter

Arms
Between his creation as Duke of Edinburgh in 1726 and his creation as Prince of Wales, he bore the arms of the kingdom, differentiated by a label argent of three points, the centre point bearing a cross gules. As Prince of Wales, the difference changed to simply a label argent of three points. Frederick never succeeded his father as Treasurer of the Holy Roman Empire and so the red escutcheon in the centre of his Hanover quarter is empty.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Frederick, Prince of Wales


text:
Marcy Playground

Marcy Playground is an American alternative rock band consisting of three members: John Wozniak (lead vocals, guitar), Dylan Keefe (bass), and Shlomi Lavie (drums). The band is best known for their 1997 hit "Sex and Candy".

Early years
The band is named after the Marcy Open School in Minneapolis, which is the alternative school John Wozniak attended. He chose the name because many of his songs were inspired by his childhood. Marcy Playground emerged in the late 1990s. Influences include David Bowie, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Wham! and the Beatles. Frontman John Wozniak's first effort, Zog BogBean – From the Marcy Playground, was self-produced, recorded in his bedroom studio with some help from his then-girlfriend Sherry Fraser and her brother Scott in the early nineties. A limited run of CDs were self-released by Wozniak. "Our Generation" and "Dog and His Master", two songs found on Wozniak's Zog BogBean project, would appear on later Marcy Playground albums. As of April 2009, Zog BogBean was available for download at Marcy Playground's official site as well as other outlets such as iTunes.

Marcy Playground (1994–1998)
After attending the Evergreen State College for two years, Wozniak moved east to New York, in order to work with multi-instrumentalist producer Jared Kotler, who John had known from suburban Philadelphia. Jared believed in John's songwriting talent and put together money with his cousin Jeff White in order to pay for and produce the duo, along with studio musician Glenn Braver(bassist) to record at Sabella Recording Studios in nearby Roslyn, New York. After hearing the two records worth of material Jared produced of John's songs, Capitol Records became interested in the music. Kurt Rosenwinkel, a mutual friend, introduced bassist Dylan Keefe to John Wozniak and Marcy Playground began performing in NYC. The band was signed to Capitol in 1995 and they performed a series of NYC club dates that would be the first incarnation of Marcy Playground as a band. Personal problems between John and Jared reached a peak after a year of playing the New York music scene and drummer Dan Rieser was brought in to replace Jared whose interest was producing other artists. The self-titled album was released in 1997, with the first single, "Poppies", released soon after.

Marcy Playground emerged into the mainstream with the success of the single "Sex and Candy". The song spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. The album went platinum and managed to spawn two other singles, "Saint Joe on the School Bus" and "Sherry Fraser". Marcy Playground is quiet and minimalist in tone. Wozniak's songs run in different styles: some are modern folk music; many have undertones reminiscent of children's songs; the blurred sound of psychedelia makes appearances; and then there are the songs with a clear rock sound.

Shapeshifter (1999–2000)
Marcy Playground's next outing was 1999's Shapeshifter. Shapeshifter was released on November 2, 1999.

A minor controversy came to light when Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers revealed on Marcy Playground's website forum that the cover art (a painting by Mark Ryden) had originally been conceptualized and commissioned by Leary for his band's aborted After the Astronaut album. He admitted to being a fan of Marcy Playground and Leary's outrage was eased once he learned that Capitol Records, former home of the Butthole Surfers and then-current home of Marcy Playground, had pitched the artwork to Wozniak as original work from its own art department and that Marcy Playground had no knowledge of the work's origins. Upon learning the truth, Wozniak proclaimed that he was "honored" to have an album cover designed by Paul Leary.

"It's Saturday", the album's lead single, managed to hit No. 23 on the Modern Rock Charts, and followed by a second single, "Bye Bye".

After Shapeshifter, drummer Dan Rieser left the band to pursue other interests. The position was eventually filled on his recommendation by Gonzalo "Gonz" Martinez de la Cotera, a friend whose previous band Lincoln had opened for Marcy Playground.

MP3 (2004–2006)
After a considerable hiatus, Marcy Playground recorded a follow-up to Shapeshifter. Marcy Playground's third album, MP3, was released in 2004.

Marcy Playground did some touring in support of MP3. The album's first single, "Deadly Handsome Man", was a song featured on the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back movie soundtrack a few years earlier under its original title, "The Devil's Song". The second single, "Punk Rock Superstar", surprised many fans while bringing in some new ones, when it was featured on the Xbox 360's playlist upon its release in 2006. Other singles from the album include "Blood in Alphabet Soup" and "No One's Boy"; both were featured on promotional ads for MP3. One album track, "Paper Dolls", was co-written by Jimi Haha of the alternative rock band Jimmie's Chicken Shack. On the track titled "Hotter Than the Sun", Wozniak reflects on the band's one-time success and remains positive about the band's future.

Leaving Wonderland...in a fit of rage (2009)
Marcy Playground's fourth album, Leaving Wonderland... in a Fit of Rage, was released on July 7, 2009. Originally conceived as a solo record by John Wozniak, he brought Dylan Keefe into the project and the record was released under the band's name. Leaving Wonderland features 12 songs, including the singles "Good Times" and "Blackbird". Also included on the record is a version of "Memphis", a Marcy Playground b-side that Wozniak's wife felt deserved a second breath of life. Sherry Fraser, Wozniak's longtime friend and lead vocalist of Two Ton Boa(a.k.a 222), designed the album cover. Leaving Wonderland was coproduced, recorded and mixed by Jeff Dawson.

After Gonzalo Martinez's departure from the band, family friend Shlomi Lavie stepped in as drummer for the band's 2009 tour. After a successful 4-day Carnival Cruise show in the Bahamas alongside post-grunge band Sponge, it was announced that the band would tour for the spring of 2009, playing in venues along the California coastline, including the Key Club, as well as cities in Canada and North Carolina.

Indaba Remixes from Wonderland (2010–2011)
Marcy Playground's fifth album, Indaba Remixes from Wonderland, was released on September 28, 2010. Indaba Remixes from Wonderland is a new CD and digital collection of remixes from Marcy Playground's 2009 album Leaving Wonderland...in a fit of rage. Marcy Playground partnered with Indaba Music to offer fans the opportunity to remix songs from the Leaving Wonderland album. Marcy Playground then selected its favorite mixes from hundreds submitted to be included on Indaba. This is the first time Marcy Playground had an album produced exclusively from fan submitted remixes to Indaba Music where the winners received royalties from album sales.

John Wozniak stated: "I wanted to make this record to show people what the online music community is capable of. I believe the talent reflected in these tracks speaks for itself. This community is thriving. It's thriving because musicians feed on inspiration they get from other musicians. Music is not meant to be a solitary endeavor; it's something we like to do with other people."

Marcy Playground was to tour many venues in support of the album through 2010.

Lunch, Recess & Detention (2012)
Marcy Playground announced in mid-June 2012 that they will be releasing a compilation of rarities, b-sides, and new material on July 17, 2012 titled Lunch, Recess & Detention. The album's first single, "Mr. Fisher", was released on June 26, 2012. Marcy Playground joined Everclear, Sugar Ray, Lit, and the Gin Blossoms on the Summerland Tour 2012.

Band members
Current
 * John "Woz" Wozniak – guitar, lead vocals (1996–present)
 * Dylan Keefe – bass, backing vocals (1996–present)
 * Shlomi Lavie – drums, backing vocals (2009–present)

Former
 * Jared Kotler – drums, backing vocals, guitar (1996–1997)
 * Dan Rieser – drums, backing vocals (1997–2000)
 * Gonzalo "Gonz" Martinez de la Cotera – drums, backing vocals (2000–2009)
 * Conor Levis - backing vocals

EPs

 * It's Saturday College Sampler EP (1999)

Soundtracks featuring Marcy Playground

 * Hurricane Streets
 * Cruel Intentions
 * Antitrust
 * Simply Irresistible
 * Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
 * Zack and Miri Make a Porno
 * Wonder Park

Cover songs

 * Jimi Hendrix - Hear My Train A Comin' (Zog BogBean - From the Marcy Playground)
 * Two Ton Boa - Comin' Up from Behind (Cruel Intentions movie soundtrack)
 * Grateful Dead - And We Bid You Goodnight (live)
 * Neil Young - Needle and the Damage Done (live)
 * Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (live)

Touring partners

 * Jolene (1997)
 * Toad the Wet Sprocket (1997, 2023)
 * Lincoln (1998)
 * Fastball (1998)
 * Everclear (1998)
 * Sonichrome (1998)
 * Pete Droge (1998)
 * Pure (1998)
 * Babe the Blue Ox (1998)
 * Blinker the Star (1999)
 * Sponge (2008) - Rock the Bahamas Cruise
 * Evoka (2009)
 * Summerland Tour (2012) - Sugar Ray, Everclear, Lit, Gin Blossoms
 * Summerland Tour (2018) - Everclear, Local H

title: Marcy Playground


text:
Kill Rock Stars

Kill Rock Stars is an independent record label founded in 1991 by Slim Moon and Tinuviel Sampson,  and based in both Olympia, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The label has released a variety of work in different genres, but was originally known for its commitment to underground punk rock bands and the Olympia area music scene.

History
Sampson and Moon initially started the label because, in Moon's words, "I just wanted to put out my friends' records because nobody was putting out my friends' records. And to put out spoken word 7-inch records." KRS-101 (the label's first release) was in fact a split 7-inch spoken-word record with Kathleen Hanna and Slim Moon; other "Wordcore" releases followed. The first major release was a compilation of Olympia-area bands simply titled Kill Rock Stars (Stars Kill Rock and Rock Stars Kill would follow in the same compilation series) and featured Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Unwound, Nirvana, Mecca Normal, Heavens to Betsy, The Nation of Ulysses, and the Melvins, among others.

Although the label's music has never reflected a singular genre or underground music movement, it is arguably most notable for releasing the work of various riot grrrl bands during the mid-'90s, some of which, especially Bikini Kill, generated a good deal of press attention. Other Kill Rock Stars releases in this genre includes albums by Bratmobile, Huggy Bear, Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17.

The label continued its tradition of spoken word by releasing their first full-length spoken word LP Big Broad by Juliana Luecking in 1995. This was also the year that Elliott Smith released his self-titled solo LP on the label. Another milestone was the 1997 release of Sleater-Kinney's third LP (and first on Kill Rock Stars) Dig Me Out, which garnered national press attention in Spin and Rolling Stone.

In 1997–98, the 5RC label was formed as a sister label to Kill Rock Stars; it released generally harsher-sounding and more experimental rock than Kill Rock Stars. The 5RC roster included Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Need New Body, The Mae Shi, The Robot Ate Me, and Metalux, among others. 1998 also marked the first-ever Mailorder Freak Singles Club, featuring Quasi, Small Stars, Sta-Prest, and Rock*A*Teens, among others.

Another popular band on Kill Rock Stars was the Decemberists, who released three full-length albums on the label between 2001 and 2005. The band's singer, Colin Meloy, also released a solo album on the label in April 2008. Other notable releases by Kill Rock Stars include albums by the Paper Chase, Jeff Hanson, Unwound, Marnie Stern, the Gossip, Mecca Normal, Two Ton Boa and Comet Gain; spoken word albums by Kathy Acker and Miranda July; and reissues of work by earlier punk/post-punk bands such as Kleenex/Liliput, Essential Logic, and Delta 5.

In October 2006, Slim Moon, the label's owner, announced he would be departing Kill Rock Stars to work as an A&R representative at Nonesuch Records, a Warner Music Group subsidiary. Moon's wife, Portia Sabin, then took over ownership of Kill Rock Stars. In 2007, the label released eleven records, including New Moon, a collection of songs recorded by Elliott Smith between 1994 and 1997. The label has begun to further diversify its roster: since 2013, Kill Rock Stars has released albums by comedians including W. Kamau Bell, Nathan Brannon, Kurt Braunohler, River Butcher, Cameron Esposito, Emily Heller, Hot Tub with Kurt and Kristen, Ian Karmel, Hari Kondabolu, and Amy Miller.

In September 2019, Kill Rock Stars issued a press release announcing Slim Moon's return to management of the label after a thirteen-year hiatus, as well as the signing of Portland band MAITA; the press release described the signing as "both previous label head Portia Sabin's last act and the first initiative of Slim Moon in his second tenure as guiding light of KRS".

In February 2022, it was announced that independent music company Exceleration Music has acquired the Kill Rock Stars catalog and formed a partnership with its founder, Slim Moon. Under the deal, Moon would continue to handle A&R and would be actively signing and developing new artists.

title: Kill Rock Stars


text:
Laser printing

Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text and graphics (and moderate-quality photographs) by repeatedly passing a laser beam back and forth over a negatively charged cylinder called a "drum" to define a differentially charged image. The drum then selectively collects electrically charged powdered ink (toner), and transfers the image to paper, which is then heated to permanently fuse the text, imagery, or both, to the paper. As with digital photocopiers, laser printers employ a xerographic printing process. Laser printing differs from traditional xerography as implemented in analog photocopiers in that in the latter, the image is formed by reflecting light off an existing document onto the exposed drum.

The laser printer was invented at Xerox PARC in the 1970s. Laser printers were introduced for the office and then home markets in subsequent years by IBM, Canon, Xerox, Apple, Hewlett-Packard and many others. Over the decades, quality and speed have increased as prices have decreased, and the once cutting-edge printing devices are now ubiquitous.

History
In the 1960s, the Xerox Corporation held a dominant position in the photocopier market. In 1969, Gary Starkweather, who worked in Xerox's product development department, had the idea of using a laser beam to "draw" an image of what was to be copied directly onto the copier drum. After transferring to the recently formed Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) in 1971, Starkweather adapted a Xerox 7000 copier to make SLOT (Scanned Laser Output Terminal). In 1972, Starkweather worked with Butler Lampson and Ronald Rider to add a control system and character generator, resulting in a printer called EARS (Ethernet, Alto Research character generator, Scanned laser output terminal)—which later became the Xerox 9700 laser printer.

 * 1976: The first commercial implementation of a laser printer, the IBM 3800, was released. It was designed for data centers, where it replaced line printers attached to mainframe computers. The IBM 3800 was used for high-volume printing on continuous stationery, and achieved speeds of 215 pages per minute (ppm), at a resolution of 240 dots per inch (dpi). Over 8,000 of these printers were sold.
 * 1977: The Xerox 9700 was brought to market. Unlike the IBM 3800, the Xerox 9700 was not targeted to replace any particular existing printers; however, it did have limited support for the loading of fonts. The Xerox 9700 excelled at printing high-value documents on cut-sheet paper with varying content (e.g. insurance policies).
 * 1979: Inspired by the Xerox 9700's commercial success, Japanese camera and optics company Canon developed the Canon LBP-10, a low-cost desktop laser printer. Canon then began work on a much-improved print engine, the Canon CX, resulting in the LBP-CX printer. Having no experience in selling to computer users, Canon sought partnerships with three Silicon Valley companies: Diablo Data Systems (who rejected the offer), Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Apple Computer.
 * 1981: The first small personal computer designed for office use, the Xerox Star 8010, reached market. The system used a desktop metaphor that was unsurpassed in commercial sales, until the Apple Macintosh. Although it was innovative, the Star workstation was a prohibitively expensive (US$17,000) system, affordable only to a fraction of the businesses and institutions at which it was targeted.
 * 1984: The first laser printer intended for mass-market sales, the HP LaserJet, was released; it used the Canon CX engine, controlled by HP software. The LaserJet was quickly followed by printers from Brother Industries, IBM, and others. First-generation machines had large photosensitive drums, of circumference greater than the loaded paper's length. Once faster-recovery coatings were developed, the drums could touch the paper multiple times in a pass, and therefore be smaller in diameter.
 * 1985: Apple introduced the LaserWriter (also based on the Canon CX engine), but used the newly released PostScript page-description language (up until this point, each manufacturer used its own proprietary page-description language, making the supporting software complex and expensive). PostScript allowed the use of text, fonts, graphics, images, and color largely independent of the printer's brand or resolution.

 * PageMaker, developed by Aldus for the Macintosh and LaserWriter, was also released in 1985 and the combination became very popular for desktop publishing.

Laser printers brought exceptionally fast and high-quality text printing in multiple fonts on a page, to the business and home markets. No other commonly available printer during this era could also offer this combination of features.

Printing process
A laser beam projects an image of the page to be printed onto an electrically charged, photoconductive, rotating, cylindrical drum. Photoconductivity conducts charged electrons away from the areas exposed to laser light. Powdered ink (toner) particles are then electrostatically attracted to remaining areas of the drum that have not been laser-beamed.

The drum then transfers the image onto paper which is passed through the machine by direct contact. Finally, the paper is passed onto a finisher, which uses heat to instantly fuse the toner that represents the image onto the paper.

The laser is typically an aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) semiconductor laser), which emits red or infrared light.

The drum is coated with selenium, or more recently, with an organic photoconductor made of N-vinylcarbazole, an organic monomer.

There are typically seven steps involved in the process, detailed in the sections below.

Raster image processing
The document to be printed is encoded in a page description language such as PostScript, Printer Command Language (PCL), or Open XML Paper Specification (OpenXPS). The raster image processor (RIP) converts the page description into a bitmap which is stored in the printer's raster memory. Each horizontal strip of dots across the page is known as a raster line or scan line.

Laser printing differs from other printing technologies in that each page is always rendered in a single continuous process without any pausing in the middle, while other technologies like inkjet can pause every few lines. To avoid a buffer underrun (where the laser reaches a point on the page before it has the dots to draw there), a laser printer typically needs enough raster memory to hold the bitmap image of an entire page.

Memory requirements increase with the square of the dots per inch, so 600 dpi requires a minimum of 4 megabytes for monochrome, and 16 megabytes for color (still at 600 dpi). For fully graphical output using a page description language, a minimum of 1 megabyte of memory is needed to store an entire monochrome letter- or A4-sized page of dots at 300 dpi. At 300 dpi, there are 90,000 dots per square inch (300 dots per linear inch). A typical 8.5 × 11 sheet of paper has 0.25 in margins, reducing the printable area to 8.0 x, or 84 square inches. 84 sq/in × 90,000 dots per sq/in = 7,560,000 dots. 1 megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes, or 8,388,608 bits, which is just large enough to hold the entire page at 300 dpi, leaving about 100 kilobytes to spare for use by the raster image processor.

In a color printer, each of the four CMYK toner layers is stored as a separate bitmap, and all four layers are typically preprocessed before printing begins, so a minimum of 4 megabytes is needed for a full-color letter-size or A4-size page at 300 dpi.

During the 1980s, memory chips were still very expensive, which is why entry-level laser printers in that era always came with four-digit suggested retail prices in US dollars. The primitive microprocessors in early personal computers were so underpowered and insufficient for graphics work that attached laser printers usually had more onboard processing power. Memory prices later decreased significantly, while rapid improvements in the performance of PCs and peripheral cables (most importantly, SCSI) enabled the development of low-end laser printers which offload rasterization to the sending PC. For such printers, the operating system's print spooler renders the raw bitmap of each page into the PC's system memory at the target resolution, then sends that bitmap directly to the laser (at the expense of slowing down all other programs on the sending PC). The appearance of so-called "dumb" or "host-based" laser printers from NEC made it possible for the retail cost of low-end 300-dpi laser printers to decrease to as low as US$700 by early 1994 and US$600 by early 1995. In September 1997, HP introduced the host-based LaserJet 6L, which could print 600 dpi text at up to six pages per minute for only US$400.

1200 dpi printers have been widely available in the home market since 2008. 2400 dpi electrophotographic printing plate makers, essentially laser printers that print on plastic sheets, are also available.

Charging
In older printers, a corona wire positioned parallel to the drum or, in more recent printers, a primary charge roller, projects an electrostatic charge onto the photoreceptor (otherwise named the photoconductor unit), a revolving photosensitive drum or belt, which is capable of holding an electrostatic charge on its surface while it is in the dark.

An AC bias voltage is applied to the primary charge roller to remove any residual charges left by previous images. The roller will also apply a DC bias on the drum surface to ensure a uniform negative potential.

Numerous patents describe the photosensitive drum coating as a silicon "sandwich" with a photocharging layer, a charge leakage barrier layer, as well as a surface layer. One version uses amorphous silicon containing hydrogen as the light-receiving layer, boron nitride as a charge leakage barrier layer, as well as a surface layer of doped silicon, notably silicon with oxygen or nitrogen which at sufficient concentration resembles machining silicon nitride.

Exposing
A laser printer uses a laser because lasers are able to form highly focused, precise, and intense beams of light, especially over the short distances inside of a printer. The laser is aimed at a rotating polygonal mirror which directs the light beam through a system of lenses and mirrors onto the photoreceptor drum, writing pixels at rates up to sixty-five million times per second. The drum continues to rotate during the sweep, and the angle of sweep is canted very slightly to compensate for this motion. The stream of rasterized data held in the printer's memory rapidly turns the laser on and off as it sweeps.

The laser beam neutralizes (or reverses) the charge on the surface of the drum, leaving a static electric negative image on the drum's surface which will repel the negatively charged toner particles. The areas on the drum which were struck by the laser, however, momentarily have no charge, and the toner being pressed against the drum by the toner-coated developer roll in the next step moves from the roll's rubber surface to the charged portions of the surface of the drum.

Some non-laser printers (LED printers) use an array of light-emitting diodes spanning the width of the page to generate an image, rather than using a laser. "Exposing" is also known as "writing" in some documentation.

Developing
As the drums rotate, toner is continuously applied in a 15-micron-thick layer to the developer roll. The surface of the photoreceptor with the latent image is exposed to the toner-covered developer roll.

Toner consists of fine particles of dry plastic powder mixed with carbon black or coloring agents. The toner particles are given a negative charge inside the toner cartridge, and as they emerge onto the developer drum they are electrostatically attracted to the photoreceptor's latent image (the areas on the surface of the drum which had been struck by the laser). Because negative charges repel each other, the negatively charged toner particles will not adhere to the drum where the negative charge (imparted previously by the charge roller) remains.

Transferring
A sheet of paper is then rolled under the photoreceptor drum, which has been coated with a pattern of toner particles in the exact places where the laser struck it moments before. The toner particles have a very weak attraction to both the drum and the paper, but the bond to the drum is weaker and the particles transfer once again, this time from the drum's surface to the paper's surface. Some machines also use a positively charged "transfer roller" on the backside of the paper to help pull the negatively charged toner from the photoreceptor drum to the paper.

Fusing
The paper passes through rollers in the fuser assembly, where temperatures up to 427 C and pressure are used to permanently bond the toner to the paper. One roller is usually a hollow tube (heat roller) and the other is a rubber-backed roller (pressure roller). A radiant heat lamp is suspended in the center of the hollow tube, and its infrared energy uniformly heats the roller from the inside. For proper bonding of the toner, the fuser roller must be uniformly hot.

Some printers use a very thin flexible metal foil roller, so there is less thermal mass to be heated and the fuser can more quickly reach operating temperature. If paper moves through the fuser more slowly, there is more roller contact time for the toner to melt, and the fuser can operate at a lower temperature. Smaller, inexpensive laser printers typically print slowly, due to this energy-saving design, compared to large high-speed printers where paper moves more rapidly through a high-temperature fuser with very short contact time.

Cleaning and recharging
As the drum completes a revolution, it is exposed to an electrically neutral soft plastic blade that cleans any remaining toner from the photoreceptor drum and deposits it into a waste reservoir. A charge roller then re-establishes a uniform negative charge on the surface of the now-clean drum, readying it to be struck again by the laser.

Continuous printing
Once the raster image generation is complete, all steps of the printing process can occur one after the other in rapid succession. This permits the use of a very small and compact unit, where the photoreceptor is charged, rotates a few degrees and is scanned, rotates a few more degrees, and is developed, and so forth. The entire process can be completed before the drum completes one revolution.

Different printers implement these steps in distinct ways. LED printers use a linear array of light-emitting diodes to "write" the light on the drum. The toner is based on either wax or plastic, so that when the paper passes through the fuser assembly, the particles of toner melt. The paper may or may not be oppositely charged. The fuser can be an infrared oven, a heated pressure roller, or (on some very fast, expensive printers) a xenon flash lamp. The warmup process that a laser printer goes through when power is initially applied to the printer consists mainly of heating the fuser element.

Malfunctions
The mechanism inside a laser printer is somewhat delicate and, once damaged, often impossible to repair. The drum, in particular, is a critical component: it must not be left exposed to ambient light for more than a few hours, as light is what causes it to lose its charge and will eventually wear it out. Anything that interferes with the operation of the laser such as a scrap of torn paper may prevent the laser from discharging some portion of the drum, causing those areas to appear as white vertical streaks. If the neutral wiper blade fails to remove residual toner from the drum's surface, that toner may circulate on the drum a second time, causing smears on the printed page with each revolution. If the charge roller becomes damaged or does not have enough power, it may fail to adequately negatively charge the surface of the drum, allowing the drum to pick up excessive toner on the next revolution from the developer roll and causing a repeated but fainter image from the previous revolution to appear down the page.

If the toner doctor blade does not ensure that a smooth, even layer of toner is applied to the developer roll, the resulting printout may have white streaks from this in places where the blade has scraped off too much toner. Alternatively, if the blade allows too much toner to remain on the developer roll, the toner particles might come loose as the roll turns, precipitate onto the paper below, and become bonded to the paper during the fusing process. This will result in a general darkening of the printed page in broad vertical stripes with very soft edges.

If the fuser roller does not reach a high enough temperature or if the ambient humidity is too high, the toner will not fuse well to the paper and may flake off after printing. If the fuser is too hot, the plastic component of the toner may smear, causing the printed text to look like it is wet or smudged, or may cause the melted toner to soak through the paper to the backside.

Different manufacturers claim that their toners are specifically developed for their printers and that other toner formulations may not match the original specifications in terms of either tendency to accept a negative charge, to move to the discharged areas of the photoreceptor drum from the developer roll, to fuse appropriately to the paper, or to come off the drum cleanly in each revolution.

Performance
As with most electronic devices, the cost of laser printers has decreased significantly over the years. In 1984, the HP LaserJet sold for $3500, had trouble with even small, low-resolution graphics, and weighed 32 kg. By the late 1990s, monochrome laser printers had become inexpensive enough for home-office use, having displaced other printing technologies, although color inkjet printers (see below) still had advantages in photo quality reproduction. , low-end monochrome laser printers can sell for less than $75, and while these printers tend to lack onboard processing and rely on the host computer to generate a raster image, they nonetheless outperform the 1984 LaserJet in nearly all situations.

Laser printer speed can vary widely, and depends on many factors, including the graphic intensity of the job being processed. The fastest models can print over 200 monochrome pages per minute (12,000 pages per hour). The fastest color laser printers can print over 100 pages per minute (6000 pages per hour). Very high-speed laser printers are used for mass mailings of personalized documents, such as credit card or utility bills, and are competing with lithography in some commercial applications.

The cost of this technology depends on a combination of factors, including the cost of paper, toner, drum replacement, as well as the replacement of other items such as the fuser assembly and transfer assembly. Often printers with soft plastic drums can have a very high cost of ownership that does not become apparent until the drum requires replacement.

Duplex printing (printing on both sides of the paper) can halve paper costs and reduce filing volumes, albeit at a slower page-printing speed because of the longer paper path. Formerly only available on high-end printers, duplexers are now common on mid-range office printers, though not all printers can accommodate a duplexing unit.

In a commercial environment such as an office, it is becoming increasingly common for businesses to use external software that increases the performance and efficiency of laser printers in the workplace. The software can be used to set rules dictating how employees interact with printers, such as setting limits on how many pages can be printed per day, limiting usage of color ink, and flagging jobs that appear to be wasteful.

Color laser printers
Color laser printers use colored toner (dry ink), typically cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK). While monochrome printers only use one laser scanner assembly, color printers often have two or more, often one for each of the four colors.

Color printing adds complexity to the printing process because very slight misalignments known as registration errors can occur between printing each color, causing unintended color fringing, blurring, or light/dark streaking along the edges of colored regions. To permit a high registration accuracy, some color laser printers use a large rotating belt called a "transfer belt". The transfer belt passes in front of all the toner cartridges and each of the toner layers are precisely applied to the belt. The combined layers are then applied to the paper in a uniform single step.

Color printers usually have a higher cost per page than monochrome printers, even if printing monochrome-only pages.

Liquid electrophotography (LEP) is a similar process used in HP Indigo presses that uses electrostatically charged ink instead of toner, and using a heated transfer roller instead of a fuser, that melts the charged ink particles before applying them to the paper.

Color laser transfer printers
Color laser transfer printers are designed to produce transfer media which are transfer sheets designed to be applied by means of a heat press. These transfers are typically used to make custom T-shirts or custom logo products with corporate or team logos on them.

2-part Color laser transfers are part of a two-step process whereby the color laser printers use colored toner (dry ink), typically cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK); however, newer printers designed to print on dark T-shirts utilize a special white toner allowing them to make transfers for dark garments or dark business products.

The CMYK color printing process allows for millions of colors to be faithfully represented by the unique imaging process.

Business-model comparison with inkjet printers
Manufacturers use a similar business model for both low-cost color laser printers and inkjet printers: the printers are sold cheaply while replacement toners and inks are relatively expensive. A color laser printer's average running cost per page is usually slightly less, even though both the laser printer and laser toner cartridge have higher upfront prices, as laser toner cartridges print many more sheets relative to their cost than inkjet cartridges.

The print quality of color lasers is limited by their resolution (typically 600–1200 dpi) and their use of just four color toners. They often have trouble printing large areas of the same or subtle gradations of color. Inkjet printers designed for printing photos can produce much higher quality color images. An in-depth comparison of inkjet and laser printers suggest that laser printers are the ideal choice for a high quality, volume printer, while inkjet printers tend to focus on large-format printers and household units. Laser printers offer more precise edging and in-depth monochromatic color. In addition, color laser printers are much faster than inkjet printers, although being generally larger and bulkier.

Anti-counterfeiting marks

Many modern color laser printers mark printouts by a nearly invisible dot raster, for the purpose of traceability. The dots are yellow and about 0.1 mm in size, with a raster of about 1 mm. This is purportedly the result of a deal between the US government and printer manufacturers to help track counterfeiters. The dots encode data such as printing date, time, and printer serial number in binary-coded decimal on every sheet of paper printed, which allows pieces of paper to be traced by the manufacturer to identify the place of purchase, and sometimes the buyer.

Digital-rights advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation are concerned about this erosion of the privacy and anonymity of those who print.

Smart chips in toner cartridges
Similar to inkjet printers, toner cartridges may contain smart chips that reduce the number of pages that can be printed with it (reducing the amount of usable ink or toner in the cartridge to sometimes only 50% ), in an effort to increase sales of the toner cartridges. Besides being more expensive for printer users, this technique also increases waste, and thus increases pressure on the environment. For these toner cartridges (as with inkjet cartridges), reset devices can be used to override the limitation set by the smart chip. Also, for some printers, online walk-throughs have been posted to demonstrate how to use up all the ink in the cartridge. These chips offer no benefit to the end-user—some laser printers used an optical mechanism to assess the amount of remaining toner in the cartridge rather than using a chip to electrically count the number of printed pages, and the chip's only function was as an alternate method to decrease the cartridge's usable life.

Toner clean-up
Toner particles are formulated to have electrostatic properties and can develop static electric charges when they rub against other particles, objects, or the interiors of transport systems and vacuum hoses. Static discharge from charged toner particles can ignite combustible particles in a vacuum cleaner bag or cause a small dust explosion if sufficient toner is airborne. Toner particles are so fine that they are poorly filtered by conventional household vacuum cleaner filter bags and blow through the motor or back into the room.

If toner spills into the laser printer, a special type of vacuum cleaner with an electrically conductive hose and a high-efficiency (HEPA) filter may be needed for effective cleaning. These specialized tools are called "ESD-safe" (Electrostatic Discharge-safe) or "toner vacuums".

Ozone hazards
As a normal part of the printing process, the high voltages inside the printer can produce a corona discharge that generates a small amount of ionized oxygen and nitrogen, which react to form ozone and nitrogen oxides. In larger commercial printers and copiers, an activated carbon filter in the air exhaust stream breaks down these noxious gases to prevent pollution of the office environment.

However, some ozone escapes the filtering process in commercial printers, and ozone filters are not used at all in most smaller home printers. When a laser printer or copier is operated for a long period of time in a small, poorly ventilated space, these gases can build up to levels at which the odor of ozone or irritation may be noticed. A potential health hazard is theoretically possible in extreme cases.

Respiratory health risks
According to a 2012 study conducted in Queensland, Australia, some printers emit sub-micrometer particles which some suspect may be associated with respiratory diseases. Of 63 printers evaluated in the Queensland University of Technology study, 17 of the strongest emitters were made by HP and one by Toshiba. The machine population studied, however, was only those machines already in place in the building and was thus biased toward specific manufacturers. The authors noted that particle emissions varied substantially even among the same model of machine. According to Professor Morawska of the Queensland University of Technology, one printer emitted as many particles as a burning cigarette:

"The health effects from inhaling ultrafine particles depend on particle composition, but the results can range from respiratory irritation to more severe illness such as cardiovascular problems or cancer."

In December 2011, the Australian government agency Safe Work Australia reviewed existing research and concluded that "no epidemiology studies directly associating laser printer emissions with adverse health outcomes were located" and that several assessments conclude that "risk of direct toxicity and health effects from exposure to laser printer emissions is negligible". The review also observes that, because the emissions have been shown to be volatile or semi-volatile organic compounds, "it would be logical to expect possible health effects to be more related to the chemical nature of the aerosol rather than the physical character of the 'particulate' since such emissions are unlikely to be or remain as 'particulates' after they come into contact with respiratory tissue".

The German Social Accident Insurance has commissioned a human study project to examine the effects on health resulting from exposure to toner dusts and from photocopying and printing cycles. Volunteers (23 control persons, 15 exposed persons and 14 asthmatics) were exposed to laser printer emissions under defined conditions in an exposure chamber. The findings from the study based on a broad spectrum of processes and subjects fail to confirm that exposure to high laser printer emissions initiates a verifiable pathological process resulting in the reported illnesses.

A much-discussed proposal for reducing emissions from laser printers is to retrofit them with filters. These are fixed with adhesive tape to the printer's fan vents to reduce particle emissions. However, all printers have a paper output tray, which is an outlet for particle emissions. Paper output trays cannot be provided with filters, so it is impossible to reduce their contribution to overall emissions with retrofit filters.

Air-transport ban
After the 2010 cargo plane bomb plot, in which shipments of laser printers with explosive-filled toner cartridges were discovered on separate cargo airplanes, the US Transportation Security Administration prohibited pass-through passengers from carrying toner or ink cartridges weighing over 1 lb on inbound flights, in both carry-on and checked luggage. PC Magazine noted that the ban would not impact most travelers, as the majority of cartridges do not exceed the prescribed weight.

title: Laser printing


text:
Matthias Jakob Schleiden

Matthias Jakob Schleiden ( 5 April 1804 – 23 June 1881) was a German botanist and co-founder of cell theory, along with Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow. He published some poems and non-scientific work under the pseudonym Ernst.

Career
Matthias Jakob Schleiden was born in Hamburg. on 5 April 1804. His father was the municipal physician of Hamburg. Schleiden pursued legal studies graduating in 1827. He then established a legal practice

but after a period of emotional depression and attempted suicide, he changed professions. The suicide attempt left a prominent scar across his forehead.

He studied natural science at the University of Göttingen in Göttingen, Germany, but transferred to the University of Berlin in 1835 to study plants. Johann Horkel, Schleiden's uncle, encouraged him to study plant embryology.

He soon developed his love for botany and cats into a full-time pursuit. Schleiden preferred to study plant structure under the microscope. As a professor of botany at the University of Jena, he wrote Contributions to our Knowledge of Phytogenesis (1838), in which he stated that all plants are composed of cells. Thus, Schleiden and Schwann became the first to formulate what was then an informal belief as a principle of biology equal in importance to the atomic theory of chemistry. He also recognized the importance of the cell nucleus, discovered in 1831 by the Scottish botanist Robert Brown, and sensed its connection with cell division. In 1838, the two scientists M. J. Schleiden and Theodore Schwann formulated a theory about cellular structure which stated, 'All the living organisms are made up of cells and the cell is the fundamental component of living organismus”. In 1885 Rudolf Virchow stated that all cells are formed from pre-existing cells.

He became a professor of botany at the University of Dorpat in 1863. He concluded that all plant parts are made of cells and that an embryonic plant organism arises from one cell.

He died in Frankfurt am Main on 23 June 1881.

Evolution
Schleiden was an early advocate of evolution. In a lecture on the "History of the Vegetable World" published in his book Die Pflanze und ihr Leben ("The Plant: A Biography") (1848) was a passage that embraced the transmutation of species. He was one of the first German biologists to accept Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. He has been described as a leading proponent of Darwinism in Germany.

With Die Pflanze und ihr Leben, reprinted six times by 1864, and his Studien: Populäre Vorträge ("Studies: Popular Lectures"), both written in a way that was accessible to lay readers, Schleiden contributed to creating a momentum for popularizing science in Germany.

Schleiden’s popular writings included two volumes of poetry which appeared under the pseudonym “Ernst” in 1858 and 1873. American composer Harriet P. Sawyer set one of his poems to music with her song “Die ersten Tropfen fallen.”

Selected publications

 * On the Development of the Organization in Phaenogamous Plants (1838)

 * The Plant, a Biography (1848) [translated by Arthur Henfrey]

title: Matthias Jakob Schleiden