What's the oldest printer you still use these days?

[Ant]

My colony still uses a HP LaserJet 6P connected to a 2008 15" MacBook
Pro with parallel -> USB adapter. I had to install Gutenprint's printer
drivers in Mac OS X (Leopard v10.5.8 and El Capitan v10.11.6) to use it.
I still have my HP PhotoSmart 8450 inkjet printer. They both mostly work
with a few minor annoying issues (e.g., paper feeds).

Thank you for reading and hopefully answering. ;)
--
Quote of the Week: "If you're an ant, and you're walking along across
the top of a cup of pudding, you probably have no idea that the only
thing between you and disaster is the strength of that pudding skin."
--Jack Handey from Saturday Night Live
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org /
/ /\ /\ \ http://antfarm.ma.cx. Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.
| |o o| |
\ _ /
( )

[GlowingBlueMist]

On 4/8/2019 3:22 PM, Ant wrote:
> My colony still uses a HP LaserJet 6P connected to a 2008 15" MacBook
> Pro with parallel -> USB adapter. I had to install Gutenprint's printer
> drivers in Mac OS X (Leopard v10.5.8 and El Capitan v10.11.6) to use it.
> I still have my HP PhotoSmart 8450 inkjet printer. They both mostly work
> with a few minor annoying issues (e.g., paper feeds).
>
> Thank you for reading and hopefully answering. ;)
>

I have a HP LaserJet 4100 I inherited when I retired that I still use
almost daily.

Nice being able to get around 10000 pages per cartridge.
I have even been able to locate a few new cartridges that were donated
to Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army stores for around $3 to
$5 bucks so I don't have to deal with the mess of refilling the old ones
or paying retail for new ones, so far.

None of those dreaded drop dead IC chips in these toner cartridges
trying to kill off the old beast so the age of a sealed toner cartridge
is not a problem.

The beast works just fine with the latest Windows 10 Pro or when using
my VMware Workstation virtual versions of XP, W7, W8 machines.

[Ant]

Nice. Did Windows include drivers for it already or did you have to find
and download them?

[GlowingBlueMist]

On 4/8/2019 6:10 PM, Ant wrote:
> In alt.comp.periphs.printers GlowingBlueMist <Glowing...@blackhole.io> wrote:
>> On 4/8/2019 3:22 PM, Ant wrote:
>>> My colony still uses a HP LaserJet 6P connected to a 2008 15" MacBook
>>> Pro with parallel -> USB adapter. I had to install Gutenprint's printer
>>> drivers in Mac OS X (Leopard v10.5.8 and El Capitan v10.11.6) to use it.
>>> I still have my HP PhotoSmart 8450 inkjet printer. They both mostly work
>>> with a few minor annoying issues (e.g., paper feeds).
>>>
>>> Thank you for reading and hopefully answering. ;)
>>>
>
>> I have a HP LaserJet 4100 I inherited when I retired that I still use
>> almost daily.
>
>> Nice being able to get around 10000 pages per cartridge.
>> I have even been able to locate a few new cartridges that were donated
>> to Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army stores for around $3 to
>> $5 bucks so I don't have to deal with the mess of refilling the old ones
>> or paying retail for new ones, so far.
>
>> None of those dreaded drop dead IC chips in these toner cartridges
>> trying to kill off the old beast so the age of a sealed toner cartridge
>> is not a problem.
>
>> The beast works just fine with the latest Windows 10 Pro or when using
>> my VMware Workstation virtual versions of XP, W7, W8 machines.
>
> Nice. Did Windows include drivers for it already or did you have to find
> and download them?
>

Windows 10 did not have the drivers for or automatically discover the
printer when first installed.

Mine has an Ethernet adapter in it so I used the manual method and
choose the IP address (or port) of the printer.

I had to use the Microsoft Update method, which took quite a while to
download the drivers. After that there were 2 sets of Hewlett Packard
and one HP directory of drivers. I found the LaserJet 4100 driver in
the HP directory which I installed.

[Roger Blake]

On 2019-04-08, Ant <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote:
> My colony still uses a HP LaserJet 6P connected to a 2008 15" MacBook
> Pro with parallel -> USB adapter. I had to install Gutenprint's printer
> drivers in Mac OS X (Leopard v10.5.8 and El Capitan v10.11.6) to use it.
> I still have my HP PhotoSmart 8450 inkjet printer. They both mostly work
> with a few minor annoying issues (e.g., paper feeds).

I still regularly use a Panasonic KX-P1124 dot matrix printer for
multipart forms. Bought it new and it's been so long I'm not sure
what year that was. (Late 1980s? I originally bought it to use with
my Commodore 64 along with a Centronics interface adapter for that
computer.)

It's worked pretty well over the years but now the hard rubber platen
is deteriorating and coming apart, causing no print where it's worn
away and paper misfeeds. Basically it's a thin rubber strip cemented in
place that provides a smooth surface that yields a little for the print
head to hammer on behind the paper. Not sure where to get replacment
material for that.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Posts from Google Groups killfiled due to excess spam.)

The US Census, what info must you give? -- http://censusfacts.info
Don't talk to cops! -- http://www.DontTalkToCops.com
Badges don't grant extra rights -- http://www.CopBlock.org
The facts about Climate Change -- http://www.RealClimateScience.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Roger Blake]

And now I see I'm responding to something from like a year and a half
ago. D'oh!

[Ant]

In comp.periphs.printer Roger Blake <rogb...@iname.invalid> wrote:
> And now I see I'm responding to something from like a year and a half
> ago. D'oh!

Better late than never. :)
--
Life's so loco! ..!.. *isms, sins, hates, (d)evil, z, tiredness, my old body, (sick/ill)ness (e.g., COVID-19 & SARS-CoV-2), deaths (RIP), interruptions, issues, conflicts, obstacles, stresses, fires, out(r)ages, dramas, unlucky #4, 2020, greeds, bugs (e.g., crashes & female mosquitoes), etc. D: Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.

Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.

/\___/\ Ant(Dude) @ http://aqfl.net & http://antfarm.home.dhs.org.
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail.

[TJ]

On 12/3/20 9:09 PM, Roger Blake wrote:
> And now I see I'm responding to something from like a year and a half
> ago. D'oh!
>

Don't feel bad, Roger. I just came across this newsgroup myself.

I use three printers, all HP. There's a Deskjet 5650, an Officejet 6100,
and a color Laserjet 1215.

The Laserjet is most certainly the newest, because it is USB 2.0. It was
a gift a couple of years ago, because it no longer met the needs of a
nephew's workplace.

Because it has both USB and parallel ports I believe the Deskjet is the
oldest, but I'm not sure. Both of the inkjets use the same print engine,
and the HP 56, 57, and/or 58 cartridges. I purchased both of them used,
on eBay.

All three work beautifully with Mageia Linux, as well as with a Windows
XP guest in VirtualBox.

TJ

[Bob Eager]

On Fri, 04 Dec 2020 02:09:41 +0000, Roger Blake wrote:

> And now I see I'm responding to something from like a year and a half
> ago. D'oh!

For the record, I have a 1993 LaserJet 4+ with Postscript upgrade.

[Roger Blake]

On 2020-12-14, TJ <T...@noneofyour.business> wrote:
> Don't feel bad, Roger. I just came across this newsgroup myself.

I've seen people respond to posts from decades ago, so I don't feel
too bad about it. :)

> I use three printers, all HP. There's a Deskjet 5650, an Officejet 6100,
> and a color Laserjet 1215.
>
> The Laserjet is most certainly the newest, because it is USB 2.0. It was
> a gift a couple of years ago, because it no longer met the needs of a
> nephew's workplace.

USB didn't even exist when my old Panasonic dot-matrix printer was made!
These days I use it with a USB-to-Centronics converter cable.

I did manage a kind of fix for the deteriorated platen rubber. I cut out
the damaged section and glued in a plastic strip cut from a flexible
CD cover. It has just the right amount of stiffness with a little bit
of give for the print head to work. I'd still like to find a suitable
strip of hard rubber somewhere to replace the entire platen insert
since I'm sure it will deteriorate further.

I also have an Epson MX-80 with an RS232 serial interface, bought well
before the Panasonic. That was purchased to use with an "Interact"
8080-based home computer system, a failed microcomputer from the
first wave of home computers circa 1980. Although I still have them,
the Interact and the MX-80 have not been switched on in many years and
it's doubtful they would still work.