Laser printers are expected to be in especially great demand, possibly supplanting existing line and dot-matrix printers. But, forecasted demand cannot be cost-effectively met, because the lapping and polishing processes associated with optical-instrument manufacturing make polygon mirrors outrageously expensive. Toshiba Machine Co, Numazu, Japan, recognized this pending production problem and developed a superprecision machine tool called the polygon mirror generator. The machine processes octagonal and dodecagonal shapes, with ICs (inscribed circles) ranging from 20 to 200 mm, using a traveling saddle and Curvic coupling that can be set in units down to one degree.