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Comment by Pxtl | Hacker News Reader

It's reassuring to know that printers have always been crap.

Can we appreciate, though, the mechanical difficulty of a machine dealing with a stack of microns-thin sheets and precisely plucking 1 of them at a time off of it fairly consistently despite variances in environment humidity and paper thickness? Probably static electricity plays havoc in some cases here.

I've worked with million dollar printing equipment in a factory before and it needed daily coddling as well.

On the other hand, the printer software/protocol/driver developers have no excuses at this point. There's no reason for that to still be as bad as it is in 2020.

Honestly, paper jams and messed up pages and dry ink wells don't enrage me too much because that's where I appreciate they have a difficult task.

It's the trash-fire software and the hilariously opaque UIs and the obscene razors/blades business models that drive me nuts.

That said I don't hate my current Brother networked printer/scanner but that may simply be because I basically never print anything.

Reminds me of a box machine at a local plant. Kept messing up and manufacturers trouble shooters were brought in. When they got there they found one of the workers sleeping on the pile of cardboard. Problem solved.

Printers being crap led to the Free Software movement and the GPL

Please tell?

> In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were refused access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer, the Xerox 9700. Stallman had modified the software for the Lab's previous laser printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users waiting for print jobs if the printer was jammed. Not being able to add these features to the new printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This experience convinced Stallman of people's need to be able to freely modify the software they use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman#Events_leadin...

My 2 least favorite things about computers: Printing and Fonts.

Importantly, it was the two things that early Macs got right. Other than price, a 1990 Mac/LaserWriter combo is superior than a modern equivalent.

Current status of apple printer setup seems right to me too. I'm happy that I can print wirelessly from macOS or iOS, without installing any drivers or configuring anything (other than the wifi password).

Yeah Apple typically get printing and audio right. Hi res too.

Lots of things they aren’t so strong on but they have always been good at the above.

https://www.wired.com/story/why-do-printers-still-suck/

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