9 ms·

I'm pretty sure one big printer company buying another big printer company is the exact opposite of "disruption" and reduces the amount of "new ideas and energy

by makomk 10y ago

I'm pretty sure one big printer company buying another big printer company is the exact opposite of "disruption" and reduces the amount of "new ideas and energy" in the industry. Indeed, the press release says something slighthy different: "Today, HP is investing to disrupt this category by replacing copiers with superior multifunction printer (MFP) technology." Basically, they want to replace the copier industry with printers, bringing the exact same crap you complain about to a whole new market segment. (Most photocopiers are already just digital scanners coupled to printers internally. They just want to replace them with cheaper, worse ones.)

mseebach 10y ago
Hasn't pretty much every copier sold in the past 20 years essentially been an MFP anyway? And isn't it fairly obvious that once you're bringing in a scanner and a printer anyway, you might as well expose them on the network as separate devices? (I use the scan-to-email function of the office "copier" fairly frequently myself, I print a bit too, but I practically never copy anything directly)
- SixSigma 10y ago
  your email system might thank you if you used scan-to-SMB instead :)
  - cptskippy 10y ago
    I've never seen that work, the I've manages was to save to USB and I was surprised it allowed that at all. Email works flawlessly every time.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      What? It's really simple. First figure out what version of SMB/CIFS you're using and if that's compatible. Then figure out if you have packet encryption enabled and if that's compatible. Then figure out if the compatibility issue you're still experiencing is due to the volume being served by a non-Windows appliance or server. If it's Windows dig through group policy settings applied and start toggling them on and off desperately until you're ready to explode. Then after days or weeks of packet captures and support calls find out it was a known issue and get a firmware patch from the MFP manufacturer. Easy.
      - discreditable 10y ago
        I just went through all of that when upgrading our file server to 2012 R2. Would not recommend. SMTP is easier but has its own problems (such as file size limits).
      - vetinari 10y ago
        Works like charm - put in server ip address, share, username, password and it nicely puts every scan there. (We used Konica-Minolta machine and Synology NAS - i.e. Samba 4).
        brazzledazzle 10y ago
        I've had it go both ways. I've found it easier in the past if someone already compromised security by disabling signing. But that was a long time ago in another life. Things have probably changed a lot since.
  - discreditable 10y ago
    Scan to SMB is a pain. We had to have our copier company come out to upgrade the firmware on all of the devices when we moved to Server 2012. Even then, we have to enable SMB 1.0 for the feature to work.
- dv_dt 10y ago
  What drives me crazy is why are there always new drivers for printers? At this point isn't there more than enough compute power in the devices to supply a consistent abstract interface?
  - i80and 10y ago
    That "consistent abstract interface" is called PostScript. The last printer I bought was a Xerox PostScript printer, and with a few minor caveats, it's been lovely not having to putz with drivers.
    - dv_dt 10y ago
      I've shopped for too many printers where all PostScript support means is you can shove PS into their front end driver.
      - wmf 10y ago
        Were those Ethernet or USB? AFAIK PostScript + Ethernet has always meant an internal RIP with no driver needed.
        dv_dt 10y ago
        At this point, I don't recall - I've gone over to only buying network capable printers as they do tend to be better about their drivers (still need somthing usually) - but the ones I've been looking at lately seem to speak some dialect of PCL.
      - _JamesA_ 10y ago
        The same is true with "PCL3 GUI". It's like the "Win-modem" fiasco all over again.
        rahimnathwani 10y ago
        You mean like winprinters (aka GDI printers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface#GDI_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface#GDI_...
scarface74 10y ago
I actually had to look up how traditional copiers worked based on your statement "Most photocopiers are already just digital scanners coupled with printers". I was so use to think of a copier being scanner + printer in the modern era, I had to take a step back and realize that wouldn't have been feasible 30 years ago.
sly010 10y ago
My mom worked in the printing industry with a company doing refills. She told me newer printers are hardwired to unrecoverably die after a fixed number of pages. Depending on the model you can even query how many pages you have left in the machine (not talking about ink here). Also my vet once told me he replaces his home printer every time it runs out of ink, because replacing the cartridge costs the same order of magnitude as a new printer and this he can always have the latest and greatest.
- 72deluxe 10y ago
  Laser printers: The imaging drums have a chip on them which counts how many pages they have processed, and will refuse to work after a certain number of pages even if the drum itself is fine. They do this to stop potential damage to the drum. You can buy cheap chips to put into the printer if you want to risk it - search for "drum reset refill chip".
  - Yxven 10y ago
    Is damaging the drum dangerous, or is it a profit scheme?
  - bonzini 10y ago
    That's not to stop potential damage to the drum. It's because on average the drum starts showing damage around 30.000 pages (a damaged drum it leaves lighter or darker bands on the paper, same as on old badly-maintained photocopiers). But because _sometimes_ it starts shows damage earlier, and they don't want you to confuse a damaged drum and an empty toner cartridge, they just force you to change it around 20.000 pages. The drum reset refill chip is not even a chip, it's a 56 ohm resistor that acts like a fuse. The drum has two resistors in parallel, one with very low resistance and one that's like 200 000 ohm. If the printer sees a high current when you turn on the printer, the firmware thinks it's a new drum and resets the page counter. After a short while the 100 ohm resistor burns (quite literally), and from that point on the firmware will only see a low current when you turn on the printer, and it will not reset the page counter. So the drum reset refill chip lets you connect the two pads where the printer applies the current with a resistor like the one on a new drum. You can buy a 56 ohm resistor yourself to achieve the same effect. It's literally a resistor and some plastic, only usable once, and they sell it to you for $10, which makes it much more of a scam than anything printer manufacturers do.
otaviokz 10y ago
Indeed. I for one fail to see how "disruption" through competition acquisition can live up to anything more than just marketing buzz wording.

by makomk 10y ago

mseebach 10y ago

Hasn't pretty much every copier sold in the past 20 years essentially been an MFP anyway? And isn't it fairly obvious that once you're bringing in a scanner and a printer anyway, you might as well expose them on the network as separate devices? (I use the scan-to-email function of the office "copier" fairly frequently myself, I print a bit too, but I practically never copy anything directly)

SixSigma 10y ago
your email system might thank you if you used scan-to-SMB instead :)
- cptskippy 10y ago
  I've never seen that work, the I've manages was to save to USB and I was surprised it allowed that at all. Email works flawlessly every time.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    What? It's really simple. First figure out what version of SMB/CIFS you're using and if that's compatible. Then figure out if you have packet encryption enabled and if that's compatible. Then figure out if the compatibility issue you're still experiencing is due to the volume being served by a non-Windows appliance or server. If it's Windows dig through group policy settings applied and start toggling them on and off desperately until you're ready to explode. Then after days or weeks of packet captures and support calls find out it was a known issue and get a firmware patch from the MFP manufacturer. Easy.
    - discreditable 10y ago
      I just went through all of that when upgrading our file server to 2012 R2. Would not recommend. SMTP is easier but has its own problems (such as file size limits).
    - vetinari 10y ago
      Works like charm - put in server ip address, share, username, password and it nicely puts every scan there. (We used Konica-Minolta machine and Synology NAS - i.e. Samba 4).
      - brazzledazzle 10y ago
        I've had it go both ways. I've found it easier in the past if someone already compromised security by disabling signing. But that was a long time ago in another life. Things have probably changed a lot since.
- discreditable 10y ago
  Scan to SMB is a pain. We had to have our copier company come out to upgrade the firmware on all of the devices when we moved to Server 2012. Even then, we have to enable SMB 1.0 for the feature to work.
dv_dt 10y ago
What drives me crazy is why are there always new drivers for printers? At this point isn't there more than enough compute power in the devices to supply a consistent abstract interface?
- i80and 10y ago
  That "consistent abstract interface" is called PostScript. The last printer I bought was a Xerox PostScript printer, and with a few minor caveats, it's been lovely not having to putz with drivers.
  - dv_dt 10y ago
    I've shopped for too many printers where all PostScript support means is you can shove PS into their front end driver.
    - wmf 10y ago
      Were those Ethernet or USB? AFAIK PostScript + Ethernet has always meant an internal RIP with no driver needed.
      - dv_dt 10y ago
        At this point, I don't recall - I've gone over to only buying network capable printers as they do tend to be better about their drivers (still need somthing usually) - but the ones I've been looking at lately seem to speak some dialect of PCL.
    - _JamesA_ 10y ago
      The same is true with "PCL3 GUI". It's like the "Win-modem" fiasco all over again.
      - rahimnathwani 10y ago
        You mean like winprinters (aka GDI printers): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface#GDI_printers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface#GDI_...

scarface74 10y ago

I actually had to look up how traditional copiers worked based on your statement "Most photocopiers are already just digital scanners coupled with printers". I was so use to think of a copier being scanner + printer in the modern era, I had to take a step back and realize that wouldn't have been feasible 30 years ago.

sly010 10y ago

My mom worked in the printing industry with a company doing refills. She told me newer printers are hardwired to unrecoverably die after a fixed number of pages. Depending on the model you can even query how many pages you have left in the machine (not talking about ink here). Also my vet once told me he replaces his home printer every time it runs out of ink, because replacing the cartridge costs the same order of magnitude as a new printer and this he can always have the latest and greatest.

72deluxe 10y ago
Laser printers: The imaging drums have a chip on them which counts how many pages they have processed, and will refuse to work after a certain number of pages even if the drum itself is fine. They do this to stop potential damage to the drum. You can buy cheap chips to put into the printer if you want to risk it - search for "drum reset refill chip".
- Yxven 10y ago
  Is damaging the drum dangerous, or is it a profit scheme?
- bonzini 10y ago
  That's not to stop potential damage to the drum. It's because on average the drum starts showing damage around 30.000 pages (a damaged drum it leaves lighter or darker bands on the paper, same as on old badly-maintained photocopiers). But because _sometimes_ it starts shows damage earlier, and they don't want you to confuse a damaged drum and an empty toner cartridge, they just force you to change it around 20.000 pages. The drum reset refill chip is not even a chip, it's a 56 ohm resistor that acts like a fuse. The drum has two resistors in parallel, one with very low resistance and one that's like 200 000 ohm. If the printer sees a high current when you turn on the printer, the firmware thinks it's a new drum and resets the page counter. After a short while the 100 ohm resistor burns (quite literally), and from that point on the firmware will only see a low current when you turn on the printer, and it will not reset the page counter. So the drum reset refill chip lets you connect the two pads where the printer applies the current with a resistor like the one on a new drum. You can buy a 56 ohm resistor yourself to achieve the same effect. It's literally a resistor and some plastic, only usable once, and they sell it to you for $10, which makes it much more of a scam than anything printer manufacturers do.

otaviokz 10y ago

Indeed. I for one fail to see how "disruption" through competition acquisition can live up to anything more than just marketing buzz wording.