[Gracana]

This probably isn't quite in the spirit of what you're asking, but I like old laser printers. You can get an HP LaserJet 4m for less than $75 just about anywhere, the toner cartridges are less than $50 and will probably outlast any basic needs you have, and if it has any problems it's easy enough to clean and replacement rubber rollers can be purchased cheaply. The service manual is even freely available and it describes the device's theory of operation. Cool!

[voltagex_]

The only thing is that the 4M and 5M probably use a large amount of power compared to their modern counterparts - anyone got any measurements?

You should be able to throw most dialects of PCL and PostScript at those printers and they'll work fine, so this fits the GP's requirements (not having 500mb of software)

Anyone know how to make Windows speak PostScript?

[Gracana]

Yep, printer drivers are already available in Windows, which is nice. According to the manual, the 4m uses 195W when printing, and 55W in standby. The 5m is 300/80, and 22W in "power save" mode. I'm guessing that's a mode where the fuser is fully cooled off, so it's probably slow to spool up if you enable that.