Sort of a tangent, but I recall hearing that the early generations of HP LaserJets had much hardware commonality with Canon copiers. I wonder if it makes sense

Sort of a tangent, but I recall hearing that the early generations of HP LaserJets had much hardware commonality with Canon copiers. I wonder if it makes sense to target used copiers as a baseline. They would be built to last and not screw people over on consumables, because the 99.9% business copier market is going to be way more TCO-sensitive than home users. I'm imagining some kit where you'd buy a minivan-sized copier, bolt a Rasbperry Pi onto a custom cable harness, and rip off all the scanning and controls stuff. On the other hand, I'd suspect many of those devices are sold as having network-printer functionality already, so it may be moot.