Easter eggs

[fixthecopier]

Easter eggs, or treasures you may find that only a tech could appreciate. I had a ticket to pick up some old printers at a customer. The 2 hp 4000's were nothing special, but the LJ4 and LJ4+ were special. Both in perfect working condition, the 4+ has the duplex and Ethernet card and all of the books and quick quides. Machine looks like it was just unboxed. I think I'll keep it at my desk as a personel printer.

[NeoMatrix]

Re: Easter eggs

Easter eggs, or treasures you may find that only a tech could appreciate. I had a ticket to pick up some old printers at a customer. The 2 hp 4000's were nothing special, but the LJ4 and LJ4+ were special. Both in perfect working condition, the 4+ has the duplex and Ethernet card and all of the books and quick quides. Machine looks like it was just unboxed. I think I'll keep it at my desk as a personel printer.

....

Yup!... trade all the oppositions printers copiers in an use all the good ones as your own personal desktop or workshop printers.
Or emergency repair loan-out machines until the toner runs out, then bin them.

It's a bit like Sun Tzu for copiers: keep your friends close, your opposition closer....

[Phil B.]

Re: Easter eggs

Easter eggs, or treasures you may find that only a tech could appreciate. I had a ticket to pick up some old printers at a customer. The 2 hp 4000's were nothing special, but the LJ4 and LJ4+ were special. Both in perfect working condition, the 4+ has the duplex and Ethernet card and all of the books and quick quides. Machine looks like it was just unboxed. I think I'll keep it at my desk as a personel printer.

i still use my 4+ has over a mil on it

[fixthecopier]

Re: Easter eggs

i still use my 4+ has over a mil on it

I used to tell the army that it was one of the few printers they could take to the desert and it would still work when they brought it back.

[Phil B.]

Re: Easter eggs

I used to tell the army that it was one of the few printers they could take to the desert and it would still work when they brought it back.

well in fact the military had gone to HP with a request for a print to handle those exact conditions.. the came up with the LJ 4 ... a few years later they were approached again for a faster model.. hence the LJ 5

[allan]

Re: Easter eggs

Jip the pickups makes for great office printers, if its not the brand you work on you wont get the itch to strip emergency parts form it.

Some one dropped a BH C360 at our doorstep, probably just to depose of it. It was in the wind and rain under a tree for a year, really looked a mess.
Switched it on and the test print came out perfect.

[copyman]

Re: Easter eggs

Lol, one printer that can stand up to a grenade. The old saying "built like a tank. Another reason the military likes them. I still have a large law firm that uses mostly HP 5's. Funny they have several newer models, i.e. P3005, 2420, etc and they are always needing service. The HP 5's run maint kit to maint kit with no issues.

Also most printers from all OEM's still use the basic HP 4 driver language for their drivers. Many times have used the HP 4 driver as a last resort, and most of time it has worked.

[gneebore]

Re: Easter eggs

Also most printers from all OEM's still use the basic HP 4 driver language for their drivers. Many times have used the HP 4 driver as a last resort, and most of time it has worked.

Had a new customer a while back. They bought two Copystar 3530's and one of the small desktops mfp from Copystar. They told us when they ordered they had contract IT and all we had to do was set up the three machines and install with the assigned ip addresses. Their offsite expert would set everything up. Well he did. All three were set up to use HP 4 drivers. Might have been a good idea if the the two 3530's did not have ledger sized paper installed to print to. HP 4 have a wee bit of a problem printing occasionally to ledger paper since they only do letter legal. The new desktop also did not like the coding and with certain new (as in written ten years after the hp 4's were off the market) software. Yes their software did not support the older machine. We got three calls in one day because the machines were printing gibberish. I got there and since our contract did not include networking I set up my own laptop with a router and cables and printed just fine with five different graphics and word processing programs to all three machines. Plugged them back into the network and sure enough gibberish with certain programs. Then I ask one of the operators to just bring up the printer folder on the pc. Sure enough right there were none of the Koycera/Copystar drivers just networked hp 4's with the corresponding ip addresses for the three Copystars. They did have the drivers cd's in the supplies drawer. I had to write on the three service tickets ( three different departments ) improper drivers being used. And had the office manager sign that any network printing error service calls not caused by the machines would result in a service call not covered by the service contract. Oh yes the office manager also had her personal laptop set up of course by their IT expert remotely offsite. She had me install the drivers on her laptop and then printed from the problem software using the IT preferred HP 4 drivers and then the copystar drivers. Copystar drivers fine HP$ drivers fifteen pages of one line of gibberish before it could be stopped.

Even after the office manager told their IT contractor that the Copystar drivers printed just fine while immediately after the HP4 drivers were printing gibberish he insisted that there was nothing wrong with the way he had set up the printers. If they did not run with standardized drivers then there was something wrong with the network card or the programming chips on the copier. That had to have been a real good phone session since she said "Excuse me I have to teach the moron his place,. Step outside and wait a few minutes please".

And that was the first but not the last time I ran into people that insisted HP 4 drivers would run any printer, even color ones. They might for basic black and white word processing. But forget about using the drivers for any new not just updated software written and released more than ten years after the printers were discontinued.

[fixthecopier]

Re: Easter eggs

I find it hard to believe that you ran into an arrogant IT person who blamed the copier. That would be like me saying the phone company blamed the fax, even though I can't get a dial tone. Simply ridiculous.

[gneebore]

Re: Easter eggs

I find it hard to believe that you ran into an arrogant IT person who blamed the copier. That would be like me saying the phone company blamed the fax, even though I can't get a dial tone. Simply ridiculous.

Well there are a few IT people that are or were willing to try something the trained copier tech was suggesting. Even had one once that asked if there were a link to any website that had training videos for setting up the copiers via the network to do the scan to e-mail or scan to folder. He had his own machine to work with when the owner of his outfit liked the sales demo on a CS 5035

[Phil B.]

Re: Easter eggs

I find it hard to believe that you ran into an arrogant IT person who blamed the copier. That would be like me saying the phone company blamed the fax, even though I can't get a dial tone. Simply ridiculous.

you are joshing right?

[fixthecopier]

Re: Easter eggs

you are joshing right?

What? Me be sarcastic? That would be absurd.

I recall one time, on my third visit for a fax that wouldn't send out because when you dialed out there was a recorded message from the phone service provideR, that said there was a block on the line. The phone company kept saying everything was fine. I was holding my cell phone up to the Bizhub so the company rep could hear the message, yelling at her "YOU HEAR THAT LADY? tHAT'S YOUR COMPANIES MESSAGE! THIS IS MY THIRD TRIP. FIX IT!!!"

[Phil B.]

Re: Easter eggs

What? Me be sarcastic? That would be absurd.

Please forgive me O Wise one for EVER doubting you!?

[gneebore]

Re: Easter eggs

What? Me be sarcastic? That would be absurd.

I recall one time, on my third visit for a fax that wouldn't send out because when you dialed out there was a recorded message from the phone service provideR, that said there was a block on the line. The phone company kept saying everything was fine. I was holding my cell phone up to the Bizhub so the company rep could hear the message, yelling at her "YOU HEAR THAT LADY? tHAT'S YOUR COMPANIES MESSAGE! THIS IS MY THIRD TRIP. FIX IT!!!"

The best one I had was a little Copystar mfp, with the fax option. We installed it and worked fine for about three months. Then the company got a computer phone system. You know the one that advertised a set rate for all long distance phone calls everywhere even overseas. They called and said the fax was not working. They could send to almost all numbers they dialed and they could receive. So I took a small stand alone fax with me and a switch box phone system that allowed testing without using their phone line. Plugged everything up and send and received fine. Plugged it back into their phone system and had the office send me a return copy of what I faxed out to them. And there right on the top was "unknown number" where the fax number of their machine was supposed to be. So I dialed my cell phone and it rang and had an "unknown caller id" on the screen. They sure did not want to hear it when I showed them in the operators manual "requires dedicated phone line" which they had when first sold the mfp. The first phone line also broadcast the phone number of that line. What was happening was when they faxed to some of the companies the "unknown caller id" would be blocked and automatically hung up on. A lot of companies were doing that because on some days they would come in and find the entire tray of paper used up by spam faxes being printed and received overnight. So block unknown call and no more spam faxes. Of course the company, a doctors office btw, did not want to hear that I could not fix the problem. I flat out told them the problem was not the machines fault. They had to get their computer company that installed the phone system to program a set phone line and a set phone number for what the machine used. Or they put in a single telephone line wired just for the fax machine. If not then when they dial certain companies their faxes will not go through. Even called one of the insurance claims offices where they were having problems faxing to. And they confirmed they had unknown caller id's blocked.