Find a picture of a sheet of graph paper (sorry, no links, you'll have to find it on your own) and print a full 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of it. That'll give you a good idea of how accurate it is./me has to go to bed, will check these comments in about 6 hours;-)
and the really interesting part is that we could not possibly have ever done this without the processing power and algorithms we have nowadays.
If these things keep improving...holy moley....now, for the first time in history, processing power is one of the strongest points in observations, rather than telescope resolution, light gathering power, or spectrum bandwidth.
We need to get better scopes in orbit. Combine that with computer processing and... Wow.
The future is so bright....I need lead shielding;-)
I haven't been that active in watching advances in astronomy for the last couple years, but what we're doing nowadays with 20 year old tech (HST (admittedly somewhat upgraded) and more modern ground telescopes is astounding. We've learned more in the last 10 years than we learned in the previous 200. Astounding. Astonishing. I wish I could have beat graduate level calculus, so I could be doing this for a career.
Some of us older farts have rediscovered the humor in fart jokes.
Especially after a night out at a mexican restaurant drinking Corona, and at 3 AM the cats explode in all directions off the bed and your SO goes to sleep, with the cats, in the living room on the loveseat.
She didn't appreciate my giggles, either. I was informed the next morning that at my age, it was undignified to giggle about something as simple as a fart joke. Heh.
"Does anyone have any real idea of how much of the planet's raw materials and resources have been wasted on "throwaway" technology that'll be polluting landfills for generations to come? No? I didn't think so. I doubt anyone really does know for sure (or care, to judge by today's corporate "ethics" -- or lack thereof)."
I doubt any numbers anyone ever came up with on this would be accurate.
I miss the old Heathkit equipment - still have an old 20 mhz scope they built. I had to fix the power supply a while back, but still works like a charm - and I bought it in '83 used, cheap.
Lordy, I remember drooling over their catalogs...can't believe it's been twenty years now. Sigh. That means I'm.... I don't want to think about it.
Interesting thought... but I suspect that if it could be done cheaply, it would already have been done. Actually, now that I think of it, it *should* have been done - it wouldn't be that hard to do (with modern chips anyway) so it is probably just too expensive to include.
LOL yes! I had one of those sitting in the big storage closet, part of a pickup load of crap I got from an ISPs cleanout dumpster; I gave it to a teacher who was still using an old Apple to grade homework, hers had died.
They were quite literally tanks. Damned if they didn't last, tho, the one I got still worked perfectly. Ah, the good 'ol days..../me is nostalgic for 8080s and 6502 processors tonite;-)
I'll second that, I've run into the same problem. It was irritating as hell to solve (this was '96 '97 ??) until someone on usenet told me what was going on. TG for usenet!
Thank god I finally threw out all those old damned deskjets and started just telling people to go to Walmart and get a new HP. It wasn't worth my time, nor their money, to fix them anymore (particularly since the ones I'd run across generally had more problems then just that)
As I remember it (more than a quarter century ago, so I may be wrong;-) the daisy wheel printer came *after* such things as the old 8-pin hammer style dot matrix dumb terminals, such as the Decwriters.
"When the ribbons started running out you could even give them a squirt of WD40 to help the ink on the outer margins wick its way back into the printing area -- and they'd print like (near) new again for a few more weeks."
LOL! That was a trick that the High Priest in high school showed us with the old Decwriter terminals. God, I haven't remembered that in years...
Same is true of the whole industry. That's why many landfills in the united states are starting to refuse electronics. Also why recycling costs for electronics are going skyhigh.
It's stupid. But hey, I guess it's the price we pay for what's euphmistically called "progress". Same ol' shit.
"Now you figure that if HP is selling the printers at a LOSS that they would want to make them as INDESTRUCTABLE as possible."
This is marketing, really, and has little to do with the actual production costs. With the huge increase in printer quality in the last 8 years or so it's actually cheaper (apparently, from what I've been told) to give them a shorter lifespan. Otherwise how would they sell the newer models with improved color (photo) printing, and bells and whistles (such as built in memcard readers)?
I agree, it's nuts. But it's what's happening to the whole friccin tech market.
My *newest* printer is a 3 year old HP I reconditioned myself. Go figure.
The misfeeds were worn/dried out rollers. That's fairly common with any printer, especially those kept in a low humidity (IE air conditioned) environment. It's fixable, but often requires dissassembling the printer.
For some reason the HP50x series also had problems with dust bunnies like I haven't seen in anything since the old formfeeds. Don't know why, tho.
Not to gainsay you, but until I cleaned out the closet a few months ago, I had 8 working Deskjet 50x series printers in there, all given to me free. I gave away some too. Wish I'd had a use for them, otherwise I wouldn't have given them to the Salvation Army.
Caveat to what I said: It would not surprise me if there are cheaper printers who have low quality feed roller rubber that will degrade with isopropyl. I haven't seen one yet tho.
I've found that a lot of petro products will degrade the roller surfaces. I've *never* had that experience with isopropyl. Some cheaper printers (especially older form feeds, like Epsons) do have problems with it - it "roughens" the surface; which sometimes will actually fix the feed problem (often feed problems are rollers not grabbing the paper consistently across the roller surface parallel to the roller axle). In those cases with the older formfeeds I used hydrogen peroxide. That was a very long time ago (80s) tho.
Don't use a a paper towel to dry roller surfaces, use a older dishrag - cotton - or better yet use denim cut from jeans - that doesn't shed. But yeah, water and soap do work well, as long as it's relatively soft water, hard water leaves deposits that will dry the roller surface out faster (particularly iron). Just make sure the roller is out of the printer, and that the soap and water don't get on the bearing surfaces or the electronics.
As regards old DECs - LOL, I remember those days. A lot of the roller rubber was, well, not poor quality, but we didn't have the higher quality rubber/synthetics we do now. God, I had some nightmares recently about those old days. The rubber was harder but had a very short air exposure life.
True about the Lexmark z series and lpd. With cups they mostly work, but a lots of web pages with complicated formatting will result in pages of garbage. I haven't had enough time to experiment. Anyone who has? I'd be interested in hearing from you...
Better yet, look at online reviews. You'll find that most people agree the Lexmarks (and the re-marks of them, such as Apollo) suck.
Oh, and the Barbie printers (remarked Lexmark rejects, currently on my suppliers list I can buy them for $10 apiece wholesale;-) Yuck.
It really depends on what you want. Want to have a printer that you're going to do less than 500 prints with in a year or two? Go to Walmart and buy a cheapie. Want something that will last, spend money.
IMHO HP is the best brand out there in the consumer market right now, but don't spend less than $150 or so retail.
Then there's this: I've repaired printers for more than a decade as one of the side jobs I do. I don't do electronics, but the mechanical side is fairly simple to do.
I charge $15/hour with a cap of $75 on repairs. For most office quality printers that's not a big deal. However for most consumer/home printers with severe problems (dust accumulation, pet hair, and cigarette smoke being among the worst ones) it rapidly climbs to the cost of a new printer.
What most people don't realize, however, is that good quality older printers, especially HPs, Xerox, and Canons, are often worth keeping around and repairing if they do the job you want to do. Most newer printers, especially those under $150 or so, are simply built to last maybe a year or so. Lexmark particularly comes to mind.
So often, for most home users, it's cheaper simply to replace it (hey, what's new?;-) and as noted in the parent post and elsewhere, it's often cheaper to replace a low-end printer than it is to buy new cartridges. I have to confess I don't understand the economics on this - I find it hard to believe it's cheaper for the manufacturers in the long run - but that's where the markets's going. Sad.
I have two printers - a HP870cSE and a Xerox laserjet. Both, I suspect, will continue to give me great service for years to come. Too bad the HP cartridges cost me more than the printer is worth. The Xerox toner cartridge has a lot of life on it yet, tho.
I have an HP 870cSE that I've had for about 2 years. I rescued it from a pile of stuff one of the local ISPs was throwing out. With this printer, it'd been stored on it's side, and the black cart had leaked all over the interior. An hour or so with a shower sprayer on hot, blowdryer and isopropyl cleaned it out, and I've printed over 2000 pages with it.
That said:
If the printer is losing quality or printing smudged, take the top off (with HP printers it's usually only 4-6 screws, unfortunately they're usually star/torx heads) and inspect both the cartridge mount base, the print head cleaner (buildup on the print head cleaner is the usual culprit) and the glides and rollers. Clean them with isopropyl and whatever seems appropriate (paper towels, regular towels, q-tips, and I've also found that toothbrushes work well).
Wipe down as much of the interior as you can reach. I have cats, and used to have a smoker in the house, and that and regular dust bunnies contribute to loss of print quality. Another thing to do is to wipe down the contacts for the cartridges.
If the printer is jamming a lot, clean the rollers thoroughly with isopropyl (note here, NEVER use anything else, and ESPECIALLY NOT PETRO PRODUCTS!) and use a rubber conditioner on them (sorry, no brand name comes to mind); dried out rollers are one of the first culprits in bad paper feeding. Another culprit is dust/hair accumulation inside the mechanisms. This is a lot more work to fix; depends on how much you want the printer fixed.
Another note: NEVER use refilled cartridges. They generally are done by half-assed firms and have a very bad tendency to leak.
HP printers are the only ones that I will buy, having had experience with many other brands. Stay away from the $50 walmart ones tho, they have some problems (or did as of last fall, anyway, mostly driver problems on win98 loads). I've had 3 printers in 6 years, and all HP, and still use the one I have, and they've all been used ones I've rescued.
I just wish the damned cartridges weren't so expensive. Sigh.
I miss the ALPS printers, a friend has one of those, and I still ask him to mail me code printouts, for the quality.
Oh, and sometimes you can find some of the Xerox Office quality printers around for cheap. They might need more RAM or some repairs (particularly roller reconditioning) but they are fantastic for printing code, and have nice software (4 pages per sheet high quality! Yum!).
Slashdot Mirror
Evil Slashdot lamefilter? ;-)
Here, in html tested and works.
It was essentially a network problem, but there's a good link in there for older printer manuals.
And I *really* have to get some sleep ;-) but I'll follow up in 6 hours or so if I manage to drag myself out of bed that quickly ;-)
SB
Find a picture of a sheet of graph paper (sorry, no links, you'll have to find it on your own) and print a full 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of it. That'll give you a good idea of how accurate it is.
Sb
and the really interesting part is that we could not possibly have ever done this without the processing power and algorithms we have nowadays.
;-)
If these things keep improving...holy moley....now, for the first time in history, processing power is one of the strongest points in observations, rather than telescope resolution, light gathering power, or spectrum bandwidth.
We need to get better scopes in orbit. Combine that with computer processing and... Wow.
The future is so bright....I need lead shielding
I haven't been that active in watching advances in astronomy for the last couple years, but what we're doing nowadays with 20 year old tech (HST (admittedly somewhat upgraded) and more modern ground telescopes is astounding. We've learned more in the last 10 years than we learned in the previous 200. Astounding. Astonishing. I wish I could have beat graduate level calculus, so I could be doing this for a career.
Wow.
SB
gas (Score:4, Funny)
by SirHalcyon (267061) on Tuesday April 08, @09:42PM (#5689925)
(http://www.uberfoo.net/)
Finally a worth cause to donate the result of all the bean burritos I eat.
Don't call it a telescope. (Score:5, Interesting)
by The Terrorists (619137) on Tuesday April 08, @09:43PM (#5689928)
Extracting data from these requires as many monitoring facilities and personnel as a real telescope.
ROFLMAO
SB
Interesting...how accurate do you feel it is?
SB
Some of us older farts have rediscovered the humor in fart jokes.
Especially after a night out at a mexican restaurant drinking Corona, and at 3 AM the cats explode in all directions off the bed and your SO goes to sleep, with the cats, in the living room on the loveseat.
She didn't appreciate my giggles, either. I was informed the next morning that at my age, it was undignified to giggle about something as simple as a fart joke. Heh.
SB
LOL. Combo All in One Beasties. Friccin' nightmare, always.
Mod parent funny.
Please?
SB
I've installed a couple IIISi's, and I've been impressed. Haven't seen the HPLJ2s yet.
You might be interested in this page I ran across during one of the installs, tho:
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/
SB
"Does anyone have any real idea of how much of the planet's raw materials and resources have been wasted on "throwaway" technology that'll be polluting landfills for generations to come? No? I didn't think so. I doubt anyone really does know for sure (or care, to judge by today's corporate "ethics" -- or lack thereof)."
.... I don't want to think about it.
I doubt any numbers anyone ever came up with on this would be accurate.
I miss the old Heathkit equipment - still have an old 20 mhz scope they built. I had to fix the power supply a while back, but still works like a charm - and I bought it in '83 used, cheap.
Lordy, I remember drooling over their catalogs...can't believe it's been twenty years now. Sigh. That means I'm
SB
Interesting thought... but I suspect that if it could be done cheaply, it would already have been done. Actually, now that I think of it, it *should* have been done - it wouldn't be that hard to do (with modern chips anyway) so it is probably just too expensive to include.
Anyone else have thoughts on this?
SB
LOL yes! I had one of those sitting in the big storage closet, part of a pickup load of crap I got from an ISPs cleanout dumpster; I gave it to a teacher who was still using an old Apple to grade homework, hers had died.
/me is nostalgic for 8080s and 6502 processors tonite ;-)
They were quite literally tanks. Damned if they didn't last, tho, the one I got still worked perfectly. Ah, the good 'ol days....
SB
I'll second that, I've run into the same problem. It was irritating as hell to solve (this was '96 '97 ??) until someone on usenet told me what was going on. TG for usenet!
Thank god I finally threw out all those old damned deskjets and started just telling people to go to Walmart and get a new HP. It wasn't worth my time, nor their money, to fix them anymore (particularly since the ones I'd run across generally had more problems then just that)
SB
As I remember it (more than a quarter century ago, so I may be wrong
Erm?
SB
"When the ribbons started running out you could even give them a squirt of WD40 to help the ink on the outer margins wick its way back into the printing area -- and they'd print like (near) new again for a few more weeks."
LOL! That was a trick that the High Priest in high school showed us with the old Decwriter terminals. God, I haven't remembered that in years...
SB
Same is true of the whole industry. That's why many landfills in the united states are starting to refuse electronics. Also why recycling costs for electronics are going skyhigh.
It's stupid. But hey, I guess it's the price we pay for what's euphmistically called "progress". Same ol' shit.
SB
"Now you figure that if HP is selling the printers at a LOSS that they would want to make them as INDESTRUCTABLE as possible."
This is marketing, really, and has little to do with the actual production costs. With the huge increase in printer quality in the last 8 years or so it's actually cheaper (apparently, from what I've been told) to give them a shorter lifespan. Otherwise how would they sell the newer models with improved color (photo) printing, and bells and whistles (such as built in memcard readers)?
I agree, it's nuts. But it's what's happening to the whole friccin tech market.
My *newest* printer is a 3 year old HP I reconditioned myself. Go figure.
SB
The misfeeds were worn/dried out rollers. That's fairly common with any printer, especially those kept in a low humidity (IE air conditioned) environment. It's fixable, but often requires dissassembling the printer.
For some reason the HP50x series also had problems with dust bunnies like I haven't seen in anything since the old formfeeds. Don't know why, tho.
SB
Not to gainsay you, but until I cleaned out the closet a few months ago, I had 8 working Deskjet 50x series printers in there, all given to me free. I gave away some too. Wish I'd had a use for them, otherwise I wouldn't have given them to the Salvation Army.
SB
Caveat to what I said: It would not surprise me if there are cheaper printers who have low quality feed roller rubber that will degrade with isopropyl. I haven't seen one yet tho.
SB
I've found that a lot of petro products will degrade the roller surfaces. I've *never* had that experience with isopropyl. Some cheaper printers (especially older form feeds, like Epsons) do have problems with it - it "roughens" the surface; which sometimes will actually fix the feed problem (often feed problems are rollers not grabbing the paper consistently across the roller surface parallel to the roller axle). In those cases with the older formfeeds I used hydrogen peroxide. That was a very long time ago (80s) tho.
Don't use a a paper towel to dry roller surfaces, use a older dishrag - cotton - or better yet use denim cut from jeans - that doesn't shed. But yeah, water and soap do work well, as long as it's relatively soft water, hard water leaves deposits that will dry the roller surface out faster (particularly iron). Just make sure the roller is out of the printer, and that the soap and water don't get on the bearing surfaces or the electronics.
As regards old DECs - LOL, I remember those days. A lot of the roller rubber was, well, not poor quality, but we didn't have the higher quality rubber/synthetics we do now. God, I had some nightmares recently about those old days. The rubber was harder but had a very short air exposure life.
SB
"Automatic" calibration is an oxymoron. ;-)
;-)
The printer can't tell when vertical is vertical and horizontal is horizontal. That requires a human. See, we're still good for something!
SB
True about the Lexmark z series and lpd. With cups they mostly work, but a lots of web pages with complicated formatting will result in pages of garbage. I haven't had enough time to experiment. Anyone who has? I'd be interested in hearing from you...
SB
Better yet, look at online reviews. You'll find that most people agree the Lexmarks (and the re-marks of them, such as Apollo) suck.
Oh, and the Barbie printers (remarked Lexmark rejects, currently on my suppliers list I can buy them for $10 apiece wholesale
It really depends on what you want. Want to have a printer that you're going to do less than 500 prints with in a year or two? Go to Walmart and buy a cheapie. Want something that will last, spend money.
IMHO HP is the best brand out there in the consumer market right now, but don't spend less than $150 or so retail.
SB
Then there's this: I've repaired printers for more than a decade as one of the side jobs I do. I don't do electronics, but the mechanical side is fairly simple to do.
I charge $15/hour with a cap of $75 on repairs. For most office quality printers that's not a big deal. However for most consumer/home printers with severe problems (dust accumulation, pet hair, and cigarette smoke being among the worst ones) it rapidly climbs to the cost of a new printer.
What most people don't realize, however, is that good quality older printers, especially HPs, Xerox, and Canons, are often worth keeping around and repairing if they do the job you want to do. Most newer printers, especially those under $150 or so, are simply built to last maybe a year or so. Lexmark particularly comes to mind.
So often, for most home users, it's cheaper simply to replace it (hey, what's new?
I have two printers - a HP870cSE and a Xerox laserjet. Both, I suspect, will continue to give me great service for years to come. Too bad the HP cartridges cost me more than the printer is worth. The Xerox toner cartridge has a lot of life on it yet, tho.
Just my shave and a haircut worth.
SB
I have an HP 870cSE that I've had for about 2 years. I rescued it from a pile of stuff one of the local ISPs was throwing out. With this printer, it'd been stored on it's side, and the black cart had leaked all over the interior. An hour or so with a shower sprayer on hot, blowdryer and isopropyl cleaned it out, and I've printed over 2000 pages with it.
That said:
If the printer is losing quality or printing smudged, take the top off (with HP printers it's usually only 4-6 screws, unfortunately they're usually star/torx heads) and inspect both the cartridge mount base, the print head cleaner (buildup on the print head cleaner is the usual culprit) and the glides and rollers. Clean them with isopropyl and whatever seems appropriate (paper towels, regular towels, q-tips, and I've also found that toothbrushes work well).
Wipe down as much of the interior as you can reach. I have cats, and used to have a smoker in the house, and that and regular dust bunnies contribute to loss of print quality. Another thing to do is to wipe down the contacts for the cartridges.
If the printer is jamming a lot, clean the rollers thoroughly with isopropyl (note here, NEVER use anything else, and ESPECIALLY NOT PETRO PRODUCTS!) and use a rubber conditioner on them (sorry, no brand name comes to mind); dried out rollers are one of the first culprits in bad paper feeding. Another culprit is dust/hair accumulation inside the mechanisms. This is a lot more work to fix; depends on how much you want the printer fixed.
Another note: NEVER use refilled cartridges. They generally are done by half-assed firms and have a very bad tendency to leak.
HP printers are the only ones that I will buy, having had experience with many other brands. Stay away from the $50 walmart ones tho, they have some problems (or did as of last fall, anyway, mostly driver problems on win98 loads). I've had 3 printers in 6 years, and all HP, and still use the one I have, and they've all been used ones I've rescued.
I just wish the damned cartridges weren't so expensive. Sigh.
I miss the ALPS printers, a friend has one of those, and I still ask him to mail me code printouts, for the quality.
Oh, and sometimes you can find some of the Xerox Office quality printers around for cheap. They might need more RAM or some repairs (particularly roller reconditioning) but they are fantastic for printing code, and have nice software (4 pages per sheet high quality! Yum!).
SB