Gene Pink said:
Perhaps you can fake them out, remove the color cartridge and put the same one right back in. When the software asks if you replaced it with a new one, say yes. I don't believe they have tiny little gas gauge floats in them.
Of course i tried that... I believe some of the carts have chips inside... Ink is big money business. Some of the ink refillers replace the interior components too (I think). I don't care enough to take one apart and make a mess.
FWIW this time the printer didn't complain about low ink, it just didn't print anything onto the paper, so probably thinks it has ink inside (yes I shook the cart and reinstalled it, still no luck). I suspect my carts typically dry out before I print out all the ink. I never print color and they go dead too. I found I could extend my ink life, by keeping the printer turned off when I wasn't actively printing, so the carts may use some kind of elapsed time mechanism.
If they are going to scam you, scam 'em right the hell back. Bet you wish you held on to that DecWriter.. ;D
Don't think that 7 wire (?) dot-matrix would cut it for mailing label barcodes and the like... Not to mention graphics drivers.
I'm looking at an old 24 wire panasonic I haven't fired up once this century, that I need to throw away too. At least the Panasonic could print graphics, but probably still dicey for barcodes.
Back when I was running my mail order business one major PIA was we had to fulfill orders within 30 days, or notify the customer of the delay and expected shipment date so they could cancel. It is hard to imagine waiting 30 days for anything these days (my new printer has already shipped), but back in the 70's when I was running my kit business I had several 30 day back order situations... one time was just more sales than I could handle by myself (a good problem to have). A second time I designed a kit around a brand new single sourced chip that the IC company (Signetics) assured me was in stock.... They neglected to mention that they were in stock in Malaysia, in die form, and still needed to be packaged and wire bonded. :
:
When you get a kit article on the cover of Popular Electronics you get a lot of sales those first few weeks. :-[
My solution for communicating with hundreds of customers, was a multipart carbon paper memo-mailer... Printing address and message with a dot matrix printer would show the address on the outside with message concealed on the inside (like those carbon paper W2 forms etc... Another thing the dot matrix printers were cool for was the soft metal serial number plates that you could print impressions directly to the metal with the dot matrix printer...
But then was then... now is now.
My first real printer was a Diablo daisywheel, fed directly from a Wyse WY-50 dumb terminal. A very basic word processor setup, worked just fine, yeah, we're really styling now in the 20th century. 8) Type and edit a paragraph until it is perfect, hit "print screen", CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK...CLACK, and repeat. Learned about RS-232 from that project, swap which wires?
I had one of those too... sweet typewriter quality output. Slow and clunky and consumed a one-use film ribbon just like a typewriter, but good quality output compared to what was available back then. I had a couple different typeface wheels
These days, I just go with the cheapest inkjet I can find. Last time I got three identical Canon's at 25 bucks ea. on sale, one still sets on the shelf new in the box, unopened. Black ink for these is less than 10 bucks. I also have little use for color, other than the occasional ridiculously intricate non-faxable full color jpeg stage plot that the crew will need in hard copy.
Gene
I also had a very early HP laser printer (last century), that sucker was huge, and heavy, and stopped working at some point. As I recall it was SOTA for it's time several decades ago (300 DPI maybe 600? ).
So I am coming full circle back to laser after two different ink jet printers that worked for several years each, The first one crapped out with a broken paper feed (from paper jams). The expensive ink scam finally exceeded my BS threshold. For my modest printing needs I am optimistic the laser process will be more than adequate. Like I said this new laser printer is cheaper than new ink would have cost me for my current ink jet... I could buy cheaper 3rd party refilled ink carts, but that does not seem a recipe for reliable printing.
JR
