5 ms·

> The printers of today are awful landfill fodder compared to the Okidata's of the 90's. Pure simplicity and speed vs FULL COMPUTERS, with scanning, faxing, and

> The printers of today are awful landfill fodder compared to the Okidata's of the 90's. Pure simplicity and speed vs FULL COMPUTERS, with scanning, faxing, and every other imaginable feature crammed in with zero hope of doing anything other than replacing the toner. The first Laserwriter in 1985 had more processing power than the Macintosh it was sold to accompany. Printers have been full computers for a long time now. As we expect them to do more and more, the computers in them get more and more complex.

hinkley 4y ago
People used to buy HP Laserjet 4 printers at auction because they were peak stability. From the look of things the 4 introduced the direct predecessor to the wire protocol printers use today (PCL 5e vs PCL 6 variants) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language
- ilyt 4y ago
  Our helpdesk offered us to take our LJ2100 and get us something newer. Many insults were thrown. He didn't try again
  - hinkley 4y ago
    There were a ton of companies selling refurbished or knockoff toner cartridges for those things too. As good as the LJ was, the fact that they had easy access to cheaper supplies just accelerated the process of selection.
alpaca128 4y ago
> As we expect them to do more and more Who does? Who asked for updates blocking third-party ink, 1GB "drivers", full-color "test prints" each time you switch it on, ...? Printing reliably doesn't sound too demanding, manufacturers reached that point long ago, and since then I haven't seen all that much groundbreaking innovation. Sure, things like wifi were added but that doesn't require cutting-edge technology - consumer devices could handle that 20 years ago, and more reliably than the printers I've used. I also haven't heard of anyone being excited about NFC in printers, and from experience I can say it's not nearly intuitive or frictionless enough to warrant the integration.
- com2kid 4y ago
  > Who does? The majority of my printing happens from my smartphone, so my printer needs to be on wifi, and needs to be able to reliably print from Android and iOS. Accordingly, it needs firmware updates because phones break how they work all the time. > things like wifi were added but that doesn't require cutting-edge technology - consumer devices could handle that 20 years ago Not just wifi, multiple protocol for connecting to printers. Also that wifi needs to be 5ghz so I don't have to switch over to a 2.4ghz legacy network every time I want to print (which I had to do with my previous 2.4ghz only wifi printer!) The onboard touch screen + embedded OS means I don't need to set anything up through a computer or smartphone app. FWIW I have a black and white laser printer from Brother, I've never had to install a driver, I just plugged it in, typed my wifi PW on to the touch screen, and after a firmware update on first use it has happily been allowing anyone connected to my wifi to print w/o any hassle.
  - spockz 4y ago
    I fixed this by adding a printer server to my NAS and use that for AirPrint and the like. Smart power socket to prevent the printer from drawing power all the time. No need to have a smart printer.
    - com2kid 4y ago
      Most people don't have, or want to maintain, a NAS + print server, having the print server software built into the printer is perfectly reasonable for a consumer product!
      - spockz 4y ago
        In my experience everyone that has an old trusted printer that they don’t want to get rid of do have enough hardware running for a server and using it like that. Obviously it’s not for everyone.
  - Marsymars 4y ago
    > The majority of my printing happens from my smartphone, so my printer needs to be on wifi It needs to be on your home network, but it doesn't need to be connected to wifi per se. Ethernet works fine, including ethernet to a wireless mesh AP.

hinkley 4y ago

People used to buy HP Laserjet 4 printers at auction because they were peak stability. From the look of things the 4 introduced the direct predecessor to the wire protocol printers use today (PCL 5e vs PCL 6 variants) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printer_Command_Language

ilyt 4y ago
Our helpdesk offered us to take our LJ2100 and get us something newer. Many insults were thrown. He didn't try again
- hinkley 4y ago
  There were a ton of companies selling refurbished or knockoff toner cartridges for those things too. As good as the LJ was, the fact that they had easy access to cheaper supplies just accelerated the process of selection.

alpaca128 4y ago

> As we expect them to do more and more Who does? Who asked for updates blocking third-party ink, 1GB "drivers", full-color "test prints" each time you switch it on, ...? Printing reliably doesn't sound too demanding, manufacturers reached that point long ago, and since then I haven't seen all that much groundbreaking innovation. Sure, things like wifi were added but that doesn't require cutting-edge technology - consumer devices could handle that 20 years ago, and more reliably than the printers I've used. I also haven't heard of anyone being excited about NFC in printers, and from experience I can say it's not nearly intuitive or frictionless enough to warrant the integration.

com2kid 4y ago
> Who does? The majority of my printing happens from my smartphone, so my printer needs to be on wifi, and needs to be able to reliably print from Android and iOS. Accordingly, it needs firmware updates because phones break how they work all the time. > things like wifi were added but that doesn't require cutting-edge technology - consumer devices could handle that 20 years ago Not just wifi, multiple protocol for connecting to printers. Also that wifi needs to be 5ghz so I don't have to switch over to a 2.4ghz legacy network every time I want to print (which I had to do with my previous 2.4ghz only wifi printer!) The onboard touch screen + embedded OS means I don't need to set anything up through a computer or smartphone app. FWIW I have a black and white laser printer from Brother, I've never had to install a driver, I just plugged it in, typed my wifi PW on to the touch screen, and after a firmware update on first use it has happily been allowing anyone connected to my wifi to print w/o any hassle.
- spockz 4y ago
  I fixed this by adding a printer server to my NAS and use that for AirPrint and the like. Smart power socket to prevent the printer from drawing power all the time. No need to have a smart printer.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    Most people don't have, or want to maintain, a NAS + print server, having the print server software built into the printer is perfectly reasonable for a consumer product!
    - spockz 4y ago
      In my experience everyone that has an old trusted printer that they don’t want to get rid of do have enough hardware running for a server and using it like that. Obviously it’s not for everyone.
- Marsymars 4y ago
  > The majority of my printing happens from my smartphone, so my printer needs to be on wifi It needs to be on your home network, but it doesn't need to be connected to wifi per se. Ethernet works fine, including ethernet to a wireless mesh AP.