I bought a 25-year-old printer & regret EVERYTHING

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  • Опубліковано 10 тра 2024
  • I've made a huge mistake and ignored the first rule of vintage computing: NEVER buy an old inkjet printer, especially a 90s Canon. Yet here we are with a BJC-2000 color printer from 1999... in an ideal world this was gonna be a fun romp into Windows 95 Bubble Jet printing, plus a test of the IS-22 scanner cartridge. In reality though, everything about this thing sucks and is awful and that should surprise no one. Least of all me, but whatcha gonna do 🤷‍♂️
    ● LGR links:
    / @lgrbirds
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    / lazygamereviews
    ● Download the archived Canon IS Scan floppy disks here:
    archive.org/details/canon-is-...
    ● Background music is from Epidemic Sound:
    www.epidemicsound.com/
    00:00 questions
    01:43 opinions
    06:04 unboxing
    08:59 setup
    09:34 betrayal
    13:08 denial
    18:58 anger
    25:49 suffering
    28:38 acceptance
    #lgr #computer #retro #printing #fail
  • Наука та технологія

КОМЕНТАРІ • 6 тис.

  • @LGR
    @LGR  21 день тому +1453

    Yes I used a different cable. Three of them, across the three different printers, all bidirectional.
    It did not make a difference. These printers are simply _pain._

    • @michelcteixeira
      @michelcteixeira 21 день тому +194

      But did you threaten it tho? In my experience 90’s printers almost exclusively work when under imminent threat to their life 😅

    • @llMarvelous
      @llMarvelous 21 день тому +57

      Yeah, you simply chose the worst printer in existence))
      Cheap Canon inkjet printer - it’s a shoot in a foot (as well as every other stupid printer that uses stupid bubbleshit technology)
      I worked with so many inkjet printers, and canon is one of the worst, I learned this lesson early on, fortunately
      Basically there is only one proper reliable inkjet technology - piezoelectric (developed by epson, of course), everything else is shit

    • @icbrkr
      @icbrkr 21 день тому +45

      Used to sell these for a living, as well as the BJC-4000 and 4100s.. yeah...just don't.

    • @llMarvelous
      @llMarvelous 21 день тому +47

      @@michelcteixeirathey worked if you dedicate all time of your life to them
      Once in a while you should also bring a sacrifice, not much, 1-2 healthy children/month is often enough

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +15

      @@icbrkr I commend you for sticking around. I'm sure selling those printers would be enough to end it all.

  • @jj182bass
    @jj182bass 18 днів тому +491

    I’m 37 and we had this printer in the 90s. The first time my little brother heard my father say “Fuck” was directly because of this infernal device.

  • @billyb7119
    @billyb7119 21 день тому +2577

    Fun Fact: I've been buying printers for 30 years, and I've regretted every single one of them.

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator 21 день тому +40

      Hah I've got a raven dot matrix downstairs and it works fine on my 286

    • @aleks1939
      @aleks1939 21 день тому

      They all suck ass!

    • @billybollockhead5628
      @billybollockhead5628 21 день тому +117

      Once I bought a laser printer 10 years ago, I’ve never looked back.. it’s still going good.😊

    • @IntegerOfDoom
      @IntegerOfDoom 21 день тому +68

      Only printer I didn't loath was a Samsung monochrome laser. Every Inkjet based printer deserves the Office Space treatment.

    • @volvo09
      @volvo09 21 день тому

      @@billybollockhead5628 I picked up a low page count LaserJet 4000 from a disposal pile, and I have a Dell color laser with a fairly low page count also.
      I only fire them up when I want to print a book or something. Otherwise I just use my Epson Eco tank, that is so cheap to print photos with.

  • @theantipope4354
    @theantipope4354 19 днів тому +369

    Former Canon service tech here: The difference between a bubblejet & an inkjet is the method used to eject the drops of ink from the print head. Canon's patented technique is to use a tiny resistive heater to vapourise the ink, creating an expanding bubble that throws a drop of ink at the paper, whereas a regular ink jet uses a piezo-electric element to squeeze out a drop of ink at the paper. Because resistive elements can be made smaller than piezo elements, a bubblejet can do a resolution of 360 DPI, while a piezo inkjet can 'only' do 300 DPI resolution.
    You would think that bubblejet tech would be more reliable because the ejection system is simpler & has no moving parts, but at least in my years of experience, BJ printers were very prone to clogged jets.

    • @mabs9503
      @mabs9503 18 днів тому +15

      Fascinating, thank you.

    • @eddiemirsberger6394
      @eddiemirsberger6394 18 днів тому +33

      So I'm not the only printer service technician that watchs videos about 25 year old printers? 😂

    • @madigorfkgoogle9349
      @madigorfkgoogle9349 18 днів тому +11

      no this is not true, both methods are called inkjet. In fact the largest producer of thermal inkjet was not Canon, but HP. The piezo inkjet was Epson tech. Advantage of piezo technology is the ability to eject droplets of any liquid with certain viscosity, while the thermal inkjet has to have the carrier being a H2O based. The advantage of thermal inkjet is simplicity and very low cost of production, while the piezo has long life (thermal head nozzle gets wider with every shot, until it cant hold the ink back) and ink versatility.
      Piezo inkjet heads were the first to achieve 720dpi (while the thermal inkjet was at 600dpi), today a piezo head is capable of 1.5 pl droplet achieving 2440dpi. Dont think that any consumer printer is using thermal inkjet today, but here I might be wrong since I dont follow small printers for more then a decade.

    • @larrylaffer3246
      @larrylaffer3246 18 днів тому +2

      It's probably the same reason glue caps get all clogged up with crud. It's one of the rare cases where having that extra bit of tech was actually better.

    • @ericrose3978
      @ericrose3978 18 днів тому +3

      HP also uses Thermo heads, I think they even predate Piezo heads, as did Lexmark back in the day,back when I cared about printers, only Epson did Piezo in the consumer maket, so I think there is at least some some level of Canon newspeak going on.

  • @lillys9876
    @lillys9876 18 днів тому +170

    I love that the chapter names for the video are called; Betrayal, denial, anger, suffering and finally, acceptance

  • @sisterspike281
    @sisterspike281 21 день тому +1087

    What is wrong with us? We all watched this poor man fighting with an old printer. We've all been there. We all know how maddening this is. Yet here we are, watching someone else go through this for entertainment.

    • @LGR
      @LGR  21 день тому +483

      We really are a sick bunch.

    • @mtnmosin2740
      @mtnmosin2740 21 день тому +33

      Oh I pushed pause as soon as the video started. I couldn't bear the thought of witnessing this horror show again

    • @T3rmin4t0rN
      @T3rmin4t0rN 21 день тому +50

      Good documentation for future generations that will never know that kind of pain.

    • @fallingwater
      @fallingwater 21 день тому +20

      I fast-forwarded through parts of the video and then ended up quitting it. I can watch Civvie go through bad games all day, but printers - and especially old Inkjets - are their own kind of torture and I just can't.

    • @waldmensch2010
      @waldmensch2010 20 днів тому +10

      i feel the pain, printers were very traumatizing , printers are my vietnam

  • @kenland
    @kenland 21 день тому +2018

    I was certified to work on Cannon Bubblejet printers back in the late 90s. The training video was a technician field stripping a printer then putting it back together. They were an absolute nightmare. Much more complicated than the HP Inkjet printers. The hilarious part was that at the end of the training video there are a few extra screws sitting on the bench. The tech picks them up, puts them in his pocket and says "Those are what we call Pocket Screws". The video ended at that. Mind you, this was the official Cannon supplied training video.

    • @magikaru
      @magikaru 21 день тому +360

      “Pocket screws” has now entered my permanent vocabulary

    • @ikrIkarus
      @ikrIkarus 21 день тому +269

      Do that enough times, and you can escape fights by throwing a handful of small screws at people's faces, exclaiming "pocket screws!"

    • @jacobthomas90
      @jacobthomas90 21 день тому +88

      Weight reduction because racecar.

    • @crauldrachinasvladington6663
      @crauldrachinasvladington6663 21 день тому +45

      @@ikrIkarus Dale Gribble would like to know your location

    • @step2cky
      @step2cky 21 день тому +25

      @@ikrIkarus and also block your washing machine pump

  • @AbrahamLure
    @AbrahamLure 16 днів тому +85

    Seeing you whisper "I hate you so much" to your printer really sealed the deal of an authentic 90s printer experience.
    My mother making growling noises from her room when having to print stuff for my schoolwork in the late 90s suddenly makes a lot more sense..

  • @MiniArts159
    @MiniArts159 17 днів тому +111

    Age has nothing to do with it.
    "I bought a printer [ . . . ] & regret EVERYTHING" is a valid statement in any era.

    • @HulluJanne
      @HulluJanne 16 днів тому +12

      I almost always dreaded printing anything in the past. Then, out of need I bought the cheapest Brother B/W laser (HL-1210W) in 2016 and for some odd reason it has worked every single time since. Doesn't even need any driver software... I use it like a few times a year or so. The original 700 page cartridge sounds like it has still plenty of powder inside.

    • @POVwithRC
      @POVwithRC 15 днів тому +3

      ​@@HulluJanneLaser is a different game. I love all my lasers.

    • @kryzethx
      @kryzethx 10 днів тому

      I've yet to be burned by a laserjet printer; I'm pretty sure the one I have is a Brother as well, though newer model, I think (HL-L2325DW), works perfectly on the wireless network, can even print from my phone. Never had an issue with it after about two or three years of steady printing

  • @SekritJay
    @SekritJay 21 день тому +2768

    Man said "25 years" then "1999" and then I fell on the floor, sobbing in agony

    • @cloudbloom
      @cloudbloom 21 день тому +107

      Ikr sometimes it doesn't feel so nice being old

    • @ddzwiedziu
      @ddzwiedziu 21 день тому +29

      F

    • @morenauer
      @morenauer 21 день тому +152

      I still feel the 90s were less than 20 years ago.

    • @RichardHartness
      @RichardHartness 21 день тому +132

      It's basic math--it's 2024 and 2024-2000 = 24. And yet, my brain will NOT accept that Y2K, the second year of my college experience, was 24 years ago!

    • @damnedsleeper
      @damnedsleeper 21 день тому +56

      And also, the printer is GenZ

  • @SCMabridged
    @SCMabridged 21 день тому +1369

    This is genuinely the most accurate inkjet printer experience you could ask for.

    • @myownirvana
      @myownirvana 21 день тому +22

      Exactly. I bought my first computer in 1996 and this brings back so many memories of fighting brand new printers back in that era.

    • @ndevvarma
      @ndevvarma 21 день тому +13

      I remember our HP deskjet running into trouble all the time, and taking ages to print simple stuff when it did choose to work. I always thought my dad and I were doing something wrong or just cursed with bad luck... turns out the bad luck's been shared across an entire generation lol

    • @gareve25
      @gareve25 21 день тому +7

      this brings childhood memories. The aesthetics and the same level of frustration.

    • @dcdc358
      @dcdc358 21 день тому +4

      I had basically the same experience with an very recent inkjet printer.
      I trashed it ... did not want to bother with it anymore.
      Was a Brother though.

    • @mkeathley
      @mkeathley 21 день тому +1

      Yes! I’ve worked on so many of these back in the day. This was the exact experience!

  • @DanielBrotherston
    @DanielBrotherston 17 днів тому +39

    "Never buy an old ink jet printer."
    Isn't that just a more specific version of the "never buy an inkjet printer" standard.

  • @benotsilent6703
    @benotsilent6703 19 днів тому +51

    17:25 - I don't care what anyone says, this is an authenticate 90s home printer setup. It truly is. Great job! You perfectly captured the reason why movies like Office Space exist. Thanks.

  • @andrewgeorgelang
    @andrewgeorgelang 20 днів тому +540

    You actually had a authentic 90's printer experience. We all swore like sailors, banged our heads, yelled, and screamed out loud. Thank you for bringing out my printer PTSD

    • @elvinhaak
      @elvinhaak 20 днів тому +19

      Neighbours sometimes looked up strangely when we 'tiled' a printer..... open the window, check if no-one is below it in the parkinglot (3 floors) and it makes such a nice sound when it hits the ground!
      One time it actually worked after that....

    • @thetechconspiracy2
      @thetechconspiracy2 20 днів тому +18

      They haven't gotten any better. HP's enterprise printers are supposed to have an agent that reports toner levels to a central server for automatic reordering and meter reads, but it doesn't work when the printer is connected over USB (it's supposed to, but it's broken. We spent over a year with HP and the MSP that provides the printers and were unable to solve it. Some models are worse than others), so each printer in our branch offices needs to be connected both over USB and to the network just to report the toner levels.
      Also, the "universal" driver they claim to have isn't. Straight up.

    • @charlie_nolan
      @charlie_nolan 20 днів тому +8

      That’s still exactly how it is today, at least with HP (Horrible Products)

    • @drg5352
      @drg5352 19 днів тому +4

      @@charlie_nolan My company buys HP because they're cheaper, and I spend more time fixing the printers at the lab I work in than actual lab work.

    • @imperialus1
      @imperialus1 19 днів тому +5

      I still have (and use) my HP Laserjet 1020. At 19 years old it is the oldest piece of tech that I still use regularly. It is loud, and slow, but it does just fine for printing text. The toner cartridges are cheap and last for years. My toddler knocked it off the desk a couple years back and cracked the case but it still works.
      I think I will make sure I'm buried with it.

  • @charleshill3802
    @charleshill3802 21 день тому +479

    I’ve seen this man rebuild motherboards from the 80’s and bring them back to life.
    No man is a match for a 90’s era Inkjet printer.

    • @piast99
      @piast99 21 день тому +30

      Nor the modern inkjet for that matter.

    • @adamwhite2364
      @adamwhite2364 21 день тому +21

      I think Clint was on to something with his frustrated growl that he ought to send it back to Canon in a big bag of 💩
      🤣🤣🤣

    • @Dee_Just_Dee
      @Dee_Just_Dee 21 день тому +7

      I mean, it's just chemistry, really... chemistry which has been lost for 20+ years. Hell of a lost medium.

    • @Kerbtree
      @Kerbtree 20 днів тому

      As someone who lived through them the first time, non-networked, non-laser printers from the period are satanic.

    • @pavel9652
      @pavel9652 18 днів тому +2

      I have an old Epson ink jet printer to fix. Jets have dried, and I partially disassembled the print head a few years ago. I have to soak it and try to put things together, with pocket screwes I can find, just to find it doesn't work anyway ;)

  • @mazterjedijedicouncil4796
    @mazterjedijedicouncil4796 16 днів тому +35

    Hey Clint, I worked at the Canon call center in Chesapeake, VA back in the late 90s for a couple of years. Watching this video was a gleefully painful trip to the past. You dealt with so many issues that I walked people thru over the phone. Lots of memories were brought back of long boring shifts. Lots of knowledge that I was quite disappointed to realize I remember and yet my brain still allowed it happen. I really enjoyed this one, thanks a ton!

  • @Schnurzegal
    @Schnurzegal 18 днів тому +37

    I have a 25-year-old HP Deskjet 710C. Still use it to print every now and then. Almost gave up on it when Windows 10 rolled around with no driver support for the old beast. Greatly insprired by you, got stubborn and installed Orache VM Virtual Machine, created a Windows XP machine on it and managed to get the printer running again. For a few years now it only prints in black and magenta, so it's not perfect, but I'm still proud of myself for prolonging its life.
    Thank you for all your videos, I'm around your age and had noone to share my love for computers with as a kid so it is nice to have that in a virtual way as a grown up. ❤

    • @Fanakapan222
      @Fanakapan222 18 днів тому +5

      HP always had the drop on the others with the printheads being integral to the cartridge. The other brands were just a way of selling refills. Pity really, the Epson printers of this era were fairly well made, but the heads always gave up the ghost through lack of use. It was not too big of a deal to fit new print heads, the catch was that the heads alone cost much more than the printer did new.

    • @carlosfvs
      @carlosfvs 16 днів тому +4

      I have an old DeskJet 820Cxi that looks like it could work. Inspired by your comment, I will try that. I will also need your yearly update here on the status of your 710C, thank you.

    • @Schnurzegal
      @Schnurzegal 16 днів тому +3

      @@carlosfvs Can't sadly guarantee an update with my scattered brain, but I'll try to keep it in mind. 😀It will be interesting to see if further colors stop functioning over time. I've been wondering if it's due to losing electrical contact. If black color stops working, I'll propably take a closer look inside. For now it can keep on printing. Hope you can get yours working or at least have more fun with the project than LGR did with the Canons!

    • @mmaldonadojr
      @mmaldonadojr 10 днів тому +1

      I've had an HP Deskjet 600, and after that an HP Deskjet 5550. After that I promised myself I would never buy an HP product anymore, neither an inkjet printer!

    • @Schnurzegal
      @Schnurzegal 10 днів тому

      @@mmaldonadojr I've had bad experiences with Epson products. It seems no option is safe when it comes to printers.

  • @rzeka
    @rzeka 21 день тому +490

    Every printer needs to have a "Yes, I installed the ink cartridges and paper correctly and there is no jam, your sensors are just wrong" button.

    • @MelroyvandenBerg
      @MelroyvandenBerg 21 день тому +53

      AND NO MY INKT IS NOT EMPTY BUTTON

    • @jnharton
      @jnharton 21 день тому +16

      Unfortunately there quite often is a "jam", it's just composed of a tiny bit of paper in the wrong spot.

    • @rzeka
      @rzeka 21 день тому +10

      @@jnharton I assume if it's that tiny it'll just get shunted out by the next paper you print (if it would _let_ you print). Either that or it won't be an issue at all and the printer will just print normally.

    • @scorpion07070
      @scorpion07070 21 день тому +21

      "Manual Override", otherwise known as the "feed" button. But that kinda ended with dot matrix when printer paper was a continuous perforated chain and easy to keep moving. When printers started having to grab individual sheets of paper it all went downhill.

    • @rzeka
      @rzeka 20 днів тому

      @@scorpion07070 I thought the feed button just pushed the paper through without printing anything?

  • @rokero171
    @rokero171 21 день тому +1577

    This piece of garbage wasn't good even 25 years ago, imagine today...

    • @Epic_Moist_Loaf
      @Epic_Moist_Loaf 21 день тому +66

      We don't have to imagine today. Clint did a video on it...the one you commented on. ;)

    • @IgnatSolovey
      @IgnatSolovey 21 день тому +17

      My thoughts and words exactly. *in a creaky voice: “I remember how this old junk was a new junk when I was already done with school”*.

    • @lastcontinue3010
      @lastcontinue3010 21 день тому +14

      Can confirm. We had a very similar model back in The Day and it was 💩

    • @SuperHammaren
      @SuperHammaren 21 день тому +2

      @@lastcontinue3010 Yes it was!! Totally.

    • @wruwruwru
      @wruwruwru 21 день тому

      So true!

  • @GldRush98
    @GldRush98 19 днів тому +64

    The fact that NIB machines don't work and all that has happened is time has passed, convinces me these heaps were designed to crap out after a year or two. Modern inkjets really aren't much better. The best thing I've found is to print one page a week to keep the ink moving. If you let it sit and don't use it, it's going to be a battle to get it working again, every time.

    • @donmoore7785
      @donmoore7785 18 днів тому +5

      I actually have had good luck with the two printer/scanners (Brother) I purchased since around 2010. Hope I haven't jinxed myself. Back in the day, yup they lasted 2 years if I was lucky.

    • @moardargons8160
      @moardargons8160 17 днів тому +1

      Just go laser. You lose color printing but _It just works_

    • @russelldoty2743
      @russelldoty2743 17 днів тому

      ​@@moardargons8160 Color laser printers are a thing.

    • @MysteriousFigure
      @MysteriousFigure 16 днів тому

      @@moardargons8160 or you get lucky and score a color laser / scanner from 2015 for next to nothing on ebay (thanks Farm office that had no idea what they were selling, and in return I got a nice samsung color laser for like 50 bucks, with the only downside being any dedicated software having some hp-ness due to them buying out samsung's print division, but you can pretty much forgo that and just use the driver windows installs (or the samsung print service for android, but that seems to have only been mildly hp branded)

    • @mikafoxx2717
      @mikafoxx2717 14 днів тому +1

      Injets can be good, but they're not the cheap ones in a Walmart.. they're the photo printers behind the counter using 8 to 12 different ink cartridges..

  • @shaider1982
    @shaider1982 18 днів тому +19

    This is one thing where nostalgia is never rose colored: installing via all those disketettes, cost of ink, needing to buy adapters and needed wires. No wifi printing from the phone. Many times, nostalgia is overrated.

  • @stevewithab2367
    @stevewithab2367 21 день тому +777

    When I worked I.T. as a student at college in 2006, there was an older guy there (who was full time staff) who was a printer WIZARD. He was able to pull them apart, replace individual gears and springs, and get everything moving again. Never had any issues getting them setup on a machine, either. He saved the college tons of money every year by being able to do repairs that manufacturers or other shops wouldn't or couldn't do. Miss ya, Gary.

    • @pmaigotthat7211
      @pmaigotthat7211 21 день тому +66

      Gary ❤

    • @Qmeister044
      @Qmeister044 21 день тому +85

      If you ever find a Gary for any particular appliance, hold on to them. Give them cookies, beer, whatever to stay on their good side. ❤

    • @volvo09
      @volvo09 21 день тому +26

      Back in 06 I started doing IT for an office of roughly 1400 people. We maintained our own Lazer printers (probably had well over 100 between personal Laser printers at executives desks, and HP 5si network printers at the end of cubicle rows.
      We had a "Gary" and I used to LOVE working on the printers. It only lasted until about 2009 when we got a contract with Ricoh and they took away all local printers and replaced them with far fewer MFD's.

    • @stevewithab2367
      @stevewithab2367 21 день тому +45

      ​@@Qmeister044 Gary never asked for much. Just a place to roll his cigs and an ear to vent to every once in a while!

    • @9852323
      @9852323 21 день тому +3

      I’ve did it before but it’s a pain in the ass.

  • @finren4308
    @finren4308 21 день тому +980

    Bubblejets were literally the worst, bubbles are supposed to be fun and this WASN’T

    • @frozyre7854
      @frozyre7854 21 день тому +62

      Just doing mild research on them, I don't understand why they're still around or rather why the technique is practiced. Because that's what Bubble Jet is, it's just Inket but practiced differently by vaporizing the ink and having it just drop like bubbles onto paper. But it's slower, it's inefficient and it is only just another way. A way that sucks.

    • @HaralHeisto
      @HaralHeisto 21 день тому

      @@frozyre7854 I'm pretty sure it was just a way of working around one of HP's patents. But yeah, buying one of these instead of a DeskJet was generally a mistake. The HP were more expensive up front, and the ink cartridges cost about the same, but you'd not be replacing the printer every 6 months.

    • @Eireman_on_Twitch
      @Eireman_on_Twitch 21 день тому +29

      Canon bubble-jet was a mistake, and I don’t know why they stuck with it! And the printers were FLIMSY electronically, with flaky boards that cooked themselves far faster than any other printer brand with PERHAPS the exception of the Lexmark-made IBM bubble-jets.
      And yet I still stand by Canon as my preferred DSLR brand!

    • @h8GW
      @h8GW 21 день тому +11

      @Eireman_on_Twitch The different departments of a large tech company can differ wildly in quality. For example, I buy just about nothing from Sony anymore, other than their bluetooth headphones.

    • @frozyre7854
      @frozyre7854 21 день тому +7

      @@h8GW
      You have a point there.
      It's like with Samsung. People buy Samsung Phones, Samsung TVs, Samsung Tablets. But I don't think anyone sees them as a primary refridgerator provider. There's just other brands.
      Just because you develop a variety of products and ranges, doesn't always mean they're as good as what you're known for providing.

  • @stanthetank
    @stanthetank 15 днів тому +14

    THAT is a absolute, perfect 90s PC experience. This how we learned to troubleshoot und to fight and to not give up until the thingy was working.

  • @opalpersonal
    @opalpersonal 17 днів тому +12

    i've never heard clint have to "beep" himself before.. positively tickling

  • @davidsteensma3221
    @davidsteensma3221 21 день тому +134

    I love that the largest video sections are entitled "betrayal", "denial", "anger" and "suffering"

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +2

      What's missing is the fifth stage.

    • @oz_jones
      @oz_jones 21 день тому +1

      ​@@james66666 isnt the last step acceptance?

  • @petemc4190
    @petemc4190 21 день тому +290

    Look forward to the "I smashed all the 90's printer with a baseball bat video"

  • @Draious
    @Draious 19 днів тому +14

    Ah nice, a Printer Simulator video experience! Now I can sit back, relax while I feel my heartrate rise, my logical thinking going out the window all the while my body is starting to shiver and tears run down my face. Thanks LGR!

  • @oddball_the_blue
    @oddball_the_blue 19 днів тому +8

    For lazerprinters from the 90's I'd look for a HP Laserjet 5 - Peak lazerprinters that usually only die because the brass cogs wear out (seriously. I worked in a company that shipped PC parts and we had a few of them in a dusty warehouse around 2010 that had printed over 2 million pages and only got replaced because parts where getting really hard to find).

    • @MaartenvanHeek
      @MaartenvanHeek 21 годину тому

      I'm pretty sure my dad had one of those in the home office. We only replaced it after I tried 3 different parallel adapters when his new computer didn't come with that port, and all of them failed driver install one way or another.

  • @NotJustBikes
    @NotJustBikes 21 день тому +513

    I look forward to watching the LGR Birds livestream one day and seeing Clint re-enacting the printer scene from "Office Space" in the background.

    • @CasualSpud
      @CasualSpud 21 день тому +20

      At least as a patreon video.. I'd subscribe to see that

    • @ProjectZanzibar-Counter-Strike
      @ProjectZanzibar-Counter-Strike 21 день тому +9

      Quite surprising to see you here!

    • @Skradgee
      @Skradgee 21 день тому +4

      I thought you meant “blurbs” at first and now I see how wrong I am.

    • @blunderingfool
      @blunderingfool 21 день тому +11

      @@Skradgee LGR Berbs. =P

    • @williampamblanco
      @williampamblanco 21 день тому +1

      This was the ending I expected as well😂

  • @MrRonJa
    @MrRonJa 15 днів тому +5

    This is the funniest video you have ever made 😂😂 I couldn’t stop laughing when the pages kept coming out blank, you captured the unique frustration of dealing with printers of the 90s lol😂🎉

    • @knghtbrd
      @knghtbrd 4 дні тому

      "of the 90s"? Oh, right, NOW you have the same damned thing except you had to subscribe to ink cartridges first. BSaaS!

  • @Nathanfx2006
    @Nathanfx2006 19 днів тому +8

    This is a gem of a video, captured something we've all gone through at one point. Thank you for sharing!

  • @SandyG3TX
    @SandyG3TX 21 день тому +204

    Yep, someone broke the cartridge slot and boxed it back up. We had customers do that alot on that model.

    • @cskinner89
      @cskinner89 21 день тому +50

      That black plastic piece at 11:25(ish) is definitely broken. The plastic retaining clips are missing from the center split post.

    • @Whiterabbit124
      @Whiterabbit124 21 день тому +16

      Clint got scooped !

    • @adamchandley2968
      @adamchandley2968 21 день тому +15

      @@cskinner89 this. its pretty evident honestly, the plastic is sheared.

    • @MrWolfSnack
      @MrWolfSnack 21 день тому +28

      That's the reason why it sat in the box. The customer got their money back, bought another one, saved that one for parts, then 20 years of time passed and it got put on eBay as new. That ink cartridge container was never tied up in a grocery store produce bag like that.

  • @schmudej85
    @schmudej85 21 день тому +221

    1999: A problem occurred.
    2024: Something went wrong.
    How the heck are we still having the exact same problems twenty-five years later?

    • @shikoist
      @shikoist 21 день тому +31

      That is how capitalism works

    • @mechadeka
      @mechadeka 21 день тому +10

      @@shikoist Chernobyl?

    • @nexussays
      @nexussays 21 день тому +26

      ​@@shikoistyou'll probably get some eye rolls, but honestly you aren't wrong. The problem is about alignment of incentives, and capitalism ensures incentives remain aligned to profit above all else. Quality/user-experience/et al are only relevant insofar as they directly and obviously drive profit.

    • @jokerzwild00
      @jokerzwild00 21 день тому

      ​@@shikoist you type this on your phone or laptop, over the internet, while watching a UA-cam video, all courtesy of capitalism. People brought these things to market in order to make money. Like it, hate it, doesn't matter one way or the other what we think. Our lives are still ruled by capitalism. Only other option is to go "off grid" and become a hermit, living off the land. Otherwise, we consume together.

    • @JackFoxtrotEDM
      @JackFoxtrotEDM 21 день тому +11

      @@nexussaysDidn't HP do some thing recently where you have to subscribe monthly to use the printer you own or something stupid along those lines? I always hear nightmares about all the crap printer companies pull these days.

  • @thegamedesignlexicon
    @thegamedesignlexicon 16 днів тому +5

    I worked at Best Buy when these were a major seller. I remember them in particular because they were what we called "Devo Yes" meaning when they'd come in for repair, we'd hand the customer a brand new one in box, mark down the return, and throw the broke printer in the garbage. Apparently cheaper for the manufacturer as trash than to ship and/or repair it. I remember the BJ2000 specifically due to the volume that we threw away. I'd say at least multiple units (1-5) per WEEK.

  • @TechOutcast
    @TechOutcast 8 днів тому +2

    Hi LGR, large format printer technician here,
    I highly doubt that thing has a piezo electric head, but when an epson piezo head gets clogged up like this due to lack of maintenance and idling for weeks on end, we can often break the gunk up with a head soak. That being letting the print head rest on a lint free wipe that has been saturated with the recommended cleaning solution for the ink type and hardware for an hour or so to an overnight or over the weekend.
    Most desktop inkjets run an aqueous ink, so if you cannot find a recommended cleaning solution for this golden age artifact, a mixture of 1 part 70% iso and 2 parts distilled water should do the trick fine.
    The worst that could happen is that you, STILL have a non functional print head.
    Since it started firing a few nozzles at the end, we can almost rule out a head cable, CR board, or brain box issue.
    What may have happened is that ink being past it's life time. My experience is much the same, but also different since the printers I work on primarily use a solvent based ink.
    What happens over time is that the pigment starts to separate from the ink base. In printers that are fed by backpressure from their ink lines, this leads to the ink base flowing out, and leaving pigments behind in the cartridge. In printers that are gravity fed like the 64" and better Mutoh machines I work on from time to time, and like yours appears to be, we see the opposite problem where we are getting a higher ratio of pigment to the ink, leading to chowdered dampers and clogged nozzles.
    Most solvent inks start to dangerously separate after a year or so, which is why some manufacturers build a expiration date cutoff into the firmware of the machine.
    Assuming your machine is running an aqueous ink giving the cartridges a REAL GOOD shake should do the trick, then again they are a couple decades past their likely expiry so it may not.
    Cheers!

  • @scotshabalam2432
    @scotshabalam2432 21 день тому +275

    Why's the vintage scene harshing on old inkjets? This is the most authentic 90's computer experience I've ever seen on youtube.

    • @Ultimatebubs
      @Ultimatebubs 21 день тому +40

      It's not the part of the 90's computer experience that we really want to remember. "Memories" like this are up there with busy signals from your dial-up ISP, and trying to call them up for tech support.

    • @TheMegaross91
      @TheMegaross91 21 день тому +5

      Agreed, we had low budget stuff and couldn't afford to buy all fancy new stuff so you just struggled on and made it work.
      I remember the first laptop I ever bought. I ripped the power connector off the board and didn't have any money to fix it so I cut a piece of trellis wire and globbed solder on til it connected. Keyboard died? Just added an external keyboard.
      Still got that laptop, it's missing so many screws but it still works.

    • @greenaum
      @greenaum 21 день тому

      PCs were pretty boring through the 1990s. Except DOOM of course! OK PCs post-1994 or so, pretty dull.

    • @squirlmy
      @squirlmy 21 день тому +5

      @@Ultimatebubs I think worse than busy signals was actually getting "help"? These calls were timed by the minute for expense, so if your problem might, just possibly, take longer than re-installing Office or re-installing Windows... well, they'd give you directions for re-installing Office and/or Windows and that was about all the help you'd get. By the time the call (or callS) ended, you were prepared to never call for help ever again. You might think I'm kidding, but I graduated from "Boston College Computer Center" with a "Help Desk Certificate" in 1999 and that's about all we were taught, installing and re-installing Office and Windows!

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +1

      @@greenaum > Except DOOM of course!
      And Descent.

  • @bpalpha
    @bpalpha 21 день тому +168

    I used to work for an office supply company that sold TONS of HP product. A representative for the company came to give us a lecture on new product. When we grilled the rep on why their products were shoddy, why the ink costs so much, why they make it so difficult to find the product number for the cartridges, even asked them why they manufacture ink to fail...the ultimate response in the end was , "Look! I'm here to help you sell MORE HP product, not address problems with production!" All of these machines are GARBAGE! And i live for the day there's real crowd funding for an actually working computer printer with metal gears and parts!

    • @gnarlin4964
      @gnarlin4964 21 день тому +23

      YES! What we need are open source/libre paper printers. The insane thing is that we already have open source/libre 3D printers!

    • @JeskidoYT
      @JeskidoYT 21 день тому

      all of those cheap sub $80 ink printers in stores nowadays? ALL REQUIRE PROPRIETARY INKK AHHHHH

    • @DCLXV2
      @DCLXV2 21 день тому +16

      Brother printers works, I've worked with repairing them, they are built better

    • @lawrencemanning
      @lawrencemanning 21 день тому +4

      I used an original HP DeskJet 500 in the mid 90s. No complaints with it; got through 3 or 4 cartridges (all refills) before switching to some HP LaserJet. I agree that the cheap printers were and are crap, but to call them all bad is nonsense.

    • @dlarge6502
      @dlarge6502 21 день тому +2

      @@DCLXV2 Agreed, I like how their carts are cheaper and also transparent allowing you to see how much is left in there!

  • @manofmanyvideos
    @manofmanyvideos 14 днів тому +3

    Only from LGR would I lie in my bed, drowsy from sleep medication, and watch 30 minutes of a man mostly struggling with a damn printer. 😂 We appreciate it, Clint.

  • @jm3363
    @jm3363 18 днів тому +2

    I had one of these; what a fantastic reminder of the era! Loved the lever install feel and sound and the cartridge containers with their film covers. The printer used to get hot and you could smell the ink, the paper and the plastic. The top buttons were fantastic to use.

  • @danielszemborski
    @danielszemborski 21 день тому +97

    In the last decade of watching LGR, I have not heard Clint use foul language until now. This printer must be the mother of all junk technology. And I thought HP was bad!

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +15

      I was a patron of his on patreon until I backed out due to financial reasons, but he regularly swears over there. Just not here because of UA-cam guidelines.

    • @jnharton
      @jnharton 21 день тому +6

      Most of the time it's not the company (Brother, Canon, HP, Dell, etc) per se so much as particular models/model lines that were unusually awful

    • @Super123456789Kuba
      @Super123456789Kuba 21 день тому +8

      Yeah, the foul Language felt more occasional (On YT, at least) than nowadays... But I cannot blame him, If you got something that doesn't work (Or it works, but there's so many caveats to deal with.) and just pisses you off then yeah...

  • @phoenician999
    @phoenician999 21 день тому +168

    I like how there's smooth jazz playing in the background while he's slowly losing his mind.

  • @terenteregele6751
    @terenteregele6751 11 днів тому +2

    I remember those times. I was working as a service agent, Canon printers were the worst, they only had problems. HP were strong, they had robust models with minor problems, and the cartridges were infinitely refillable. Good luck man, I appreciate what you are doing!!!

  • @60plustv23
    @60plustv23 17 днів тому +3

    "...I just wont 90's printer expirience..." that exacly how i remember printers in 90's 😂

  • @fluffyfoxbunny
    @fluffyfoxbunny 21 день тому +384

    Gonna embrace my inner Canon and be an absolute bitch to deal with

    • @LGR
      @LGR  21 день тому +156

      okay this gave me a good laugh 😄

    • @bombyxtau
      @bombyxtau 21 день тому +20

      extremely underrated comment LMAO

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +4

      That's one way to get alimony.

    • @kodidavis2819
      @kodidavis2819 21 день тому +1

      Not all Canons are like that my MG 2120 is very nice to me. the only time it's a pain is when I get a new computer

    • @Flatr8_official
      @Flatr8_official 19 днів тому +3

      “What do people and printers from the 90’s-early 00’s have in common? They don’t want to work!”- people who own houses

  • @jruonti
    @jruonti 21 день тому +151

    If anyone wonders what printing was like in the late 90's, just show them this video. Such a genuine experience. With the small exeption that back then you could take it back to the store.

    • @stellarobado4269
      @stellarobado4269 21 день тому +13

      Can confirm, this video isn't really about vintage tech. That really was the crappy inkjet experience in its own time.

    • @root42
      @root42 21 день тому +2

      I so don’t regret not owning an inkjet ever… first we had a Star LC24-10 pinwriter, then an old LJ3, after that a Kyocera FS-1000. All those were really reliable.

    • @xomm
      @xomm 21 день тому +8

      ​@@root42100%, when I was a kid sometimes I would be jealous of the other kids that could print their papers and assignments in color.
      As I grew up and learned how much less fuss our family's B&W laser printers were compared to inkjets, that jealousy turned into smugness instead. 😂

    • @Rymac91
      @Rymac91 20 днів тому

      I remember that in the past 30 years in my house we had HP, Canon and Lexmark printers; but the Canon printer was the only one we returned to the store... and it was "free" bonus in a PC bundle.

  • @brandido2002
    @brandido2002 11 днів тому +2

    What did we learn children? That Canon printers have not changed.
    This is perhaps my favorite of all your videos.

  • @TheBeastyGerbil
    @TheBeastyGerbil 17 днів тому +6

    Try a HP deskJet 660C I have an old one and it uses standard HP 49 ink with no weird holder assembly, it prints directly from the cartridge with no weird nozzle in between it and the paper like yours has. It’s a serial port printer and It’s a beautiful old beast. Mine was made in November of 95 and is an “SE” edition but it seems identical to the regular 600C other than using a SCSI cabe to interface with the printer for some reason.

  • @PXAbstraction
    @PXAbstraction 21 день тому +165

    As someone who works in IT, if it involves a printer, it's *always* going to be a nightmare.
    "Wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the bubble jets."

    • @excrono
      @excrono 21 день тому +32

      “The right man supporting the wrong ticket can make all the difference in the world.”

    • @andrew1977au
      @andrew1977au 21 день тому +15

      Unforseen Consequences!

    • @azraelle6232
      @azraelle6232 20 днів тому +4

      @@excrono "They're waiting for you, Gordon... In the Tech Support Department."

  • @djarc9
    @djarc9 21 день тому +133

    My two most frustrating things of the 90's
    - Getting a printer to print
    - Installing a modem driver

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +11

      You must have had one of those winmodems which have been known for sucking. Using the external modems via serial port are much easier to install and use.
      Can't go wrong with USRobotics.

    • @robertoso8796
      @robertoso8796 21 день тому +1

      i just realized i never had to. my first computer was an ibm clone in 96 that a family friend used to build and sell with modem option which we didn't get initially but he ended up installing a few months later when we finally got isp access locally, a 56k us robotics. my second pc was k62 acer aspire which included it and it was on this that i finally installed my firs internal components, a cd-rw ide burner and audio blaster

    • @Sigurther
      @Sigurther 21 день тому

      Never had a problem with a single modem I used, and I went from 2400baud to 56kflex.
      Printers? Absolute crap, every single one. Only printer I ever had that wasn't junk is a Dell Laser MFP 1815DN. And yes, you heard correctly - IS, as in I still use it. I got it secondhand from a friend after helping him clean out his grandmother's house in 2010, and she had already had it for a few years. I'm almost certain it's still got the same toner cartridge in it. Only problem is that the mechanics are starting to fail, but when it runs, it still prints perfectly. Lots of weird phantom paper jams and sadly, the feeding mechanism for copying/scanning batches doesn't work as one of the rubber belts disintegrated.
      By comparison, every inkjet or bubblejet printer I owned failed after a year or two and the ink cartridges never got the advertised number of pages. Terrible line of printers, all printed terribly too.

    • @ChishanFipz
      @ChishanFipz 21 день тому

      add the dreaded WINMODEM - after 3 hours desparately trying to get online, I lost it - Pulled the thing out and flung it down the garden!

    • @lennyghoul
      @lennyghoul 21 день тому

      Actually I can one up that...Print sharing. I did light IT tech work in the 90's lots of cabling as well, and print sharing was the absolutely worst biggest most failure prone POS of the entire experience, because not only did you have to deal with these monstrosity printers, but you also had to make them do things they refuse to do.

  • @JB2X-Z
    @JB2X-Z 12 днів тому +2

    I love how Clint started this video so bright and hopeful, expecting to be about to take a stroll through memory lane with a childhood printer but came out on the other side with what almost felt like a failed video project.
    But the thing is that this was incredible to watch because of the constant disappointments. I appreciate that you allowed us to experience your infuriation with the printer. Not every video should be a positive outcome with technology.
    Thank you, Clint.

  • @SpaceCop
    @SpaceCop 18 днів тому +3

    7:00 that is one unfortunate serial number. I've had customers call and complain about how we are harassing them over things like that. Finally got rid of them by giving them the number for the manufacturer.

    • @n646n
      @n646n 13 днів тому

      Wasn't this the 90s? I'd think they'd have supported that kind of stuff.

    • @samvimes9510
      @samvimes9510 7 днів тому

      oh god, I didn't even notice that

  • @wisimiwara
    @wisimiwara 21 день тому +57

    "i wanted 90s printer experience" I think it's quite accurate. You got it.

  • @ThatMatt85
    @ThatMatt85 21 день тому +113

    This is the real video. What being a retro tech youtuber is really like. Not the glamor of what the edited good videos usually are. This one is usually deleted and never seeing the light of day. I applaud you letting us see the frustration of realistically working with retro tech.

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +5

      Yes. I felt like Adrian Black opened the floodgates when he left that kind of stuff in his videos.

    • @ThatMatt85
      @ThatMatt85 21 день тому +1

      @@rommix0 I didn't know who Adrian Black is but I just subbed. will watch later.

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +1

      @@ThatMatt85 Yeah his stuff is good. From fixing Commodore 64s to other stuff like programming diagnostic ROMs.

  • @kennyv8486
    @kennyv8486 14 днів тому +2

    That sound you made in response to the smell of the cartridge was gold. 7:53

  • @gabotron94
    @gabotron94 19 днів тому

    I had the exact same one in 2001! It came free with our indigo blue G3 iMac. I felt bad for tearing it down, thanks for preserving this... engaging experience

  • @ajslim79
    @ajslim79 21 день тому +106

    a WHOLE 1999 experience out of the box..

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +7

      Yeah and a reason why some things are just better left in the past.

    • @dankline9162
      @dankline9162 21 день тому +1

      Well, some ppl thought the world was gonna end then, so why bother making better printers? Haha

  • @EngineHeadCW
    @EngineHeadCW 21 день тому +74

    I worked at Office Depot in 1999 and I can tell you that your video is a success. You have recreated the late-90s inkjet experience! We got more returns on Canon inkjet printers than any other brand for the same reasons that you are experiencing now. In fact, Canon inkjet printers took up more space in our 'returns cage' than any other item, short of Emachines computers. They were number one, but Canon inkjet printers was easily number two.

    • @JonBrase
      @JonBrase 21 день тому +6

      Funny, our e-machine never died. And the sticker on the front advertised a clock speed that was not only 25% or so *lower* than the CPU actually installed, but didn't even *exist* for the series of CPU in question. (Paid for 766 MHz, got an even GHz).
      Quite at odds with both e-machine's reputation and what you'd expect from the garish stickers on the front.

    • @EngineHeadCW
      @EngineHeadCW 21 день тому +2

      @@JonBrase I personally never had a problem with Emachines. On the contrary, I thought they were the best deal in PCs at the time. I sold a crap-ton of em. They were brought back, I think, because people would send off for the rebates then return the computer. Easy money.

  • @ajm2671
    @ajm2671 17 днів тому +2

    I laughed at that "Y2K OK!" sticker on the box, what a silly thing in retrospective.
    Also a nice job on translating the unboxing at 7:01: [bubble wrap unwrapping all bubbly-like], sums it up pretty good.

  • @DragoserakerIT
    @DragoserakerIT 19 днів тому

    This was a throw back but also solved something I've been trying to figure out for years., I had one of these in the 90s, been trying to rebuild the 90's home setup and have been trying to work out what was missing...

  • @RandomGuy-lk9tx
    @RandomGuy-lk9tx 21 день тому +63

    7:59 - LGR's love for smelling old stuff backfires for the first time hahaha

    • @lazlopanaflex777
      @lazlopanaflex777 21 день тому

      Yes indeed LMAO! Clint, you're a glutton for punishment...that shitty smell should've been a sign to stop.right.there 🛑🤣💩

    • @wobblyboost1582
      @wobblyboost1582 21 день тому +1

      Forbidden perfume.

  • @LethargicSquirrel
    @LethargicSquirrel 21 день тому +39

    2 Things:
    1. There was a comedienne back in the early 00s that had a nice bit about printers.
    "People keep telling me I should have kids. What do I need kids for? I've got a printer!"
    "Print."
    "No."
    "Print!"
    "No!"
    "PRINT!!!"
    "NO!!!"
    2. You should see if you can find an HP DeskJet 720C. My family had one, and it still worked when we finally tossed it just a few years ago. Thing was built like a tank and worked for 20 years. I think the cartridges in it at the end were at least 10 years old, but somehow still printed just fine. That thing was a beast and I kinda wish we'd kept it.

    • @MrMega200
      @MrMega200 21 день тому +3

      My parents had one and it kicked the bucket somewhere after 4-5 years of use. Refused to print for some reason or the printing was messed up, can't remember clearly why but it ended up puking ink onto our floor.

  • @chemergency
    @chemergency 14 днів тому

    One of the reasons I really enjoy Clint's videos is because he doesn't shy away from showing failure or major problems during his setup videos. As someone who also enjoys tinkering with old PC's and tech it can be very frustrating to run into a problem and struggle for hours to negotiate or fix said problem, but I never find it discouraging or give up because LGR's videos often show that I'm not alone in that frustration or just unskilled or inept with old tech, they can simply be a pain in the ass a lot of the time but that's part of their charm.

  • @BilalHeuser1
    @BilalHeuser1 19 днів тому

    I had a Canon BJC-4400 printer and it worked great. I never used it as a color printer, but instead use the large black cartridge (BC-01) for it and would last a long time. Every time you bought a new black cartridge (BC-01) you got a new print-head as well. It was also an easy cartridge to refill and reuse. You could print on both sides of page too.
    Today, I'm using a HP LaserJet 1320 printer and it's been going strong for about 10 years. It doesn't care I use HP branded cartridges or not. But my printing needs are modest at best.

  • @NeverBored_retro_rehab
    @NeverBored_retro_rehab 21 день тому +80

    I owned a computershop in the 90s. Canon BubbleJets were the worst. Also Epson Styles printers had clogging issues. I always tried changing customers’ minds when they came in and asked for a Canon or Epson. If these things clogged or broke, I had to deal with the RMA issues (and that happened a lot!).
    Just get yourself an HP Deskjet 600, 895 or any other model from that era. Cartridges are still available and no clogging issues because you replace the printhead with each change of cartridge.

    • @headcrab4090
      @headcrab4090 21 день тому +1

      I used to buy off brand ink from the internet to refill the cartridges. It was good quality at a low price.

    • @mycosys
      @mycosys 21 день тому +1

      Got an older OfficeJet that uses the HP21XL, only way thats changing is if i get a feeder system XD

    • @garloch
      @garloch 21 день тому +1

      Had a HP Deskjet 720C back in the day, never had a problem, sadly ended in the garbage one day thx to my mom.

    • @russdill
      @russdill 20 днів тому

      Came here to say this exact thing. This video brought up some bad memories. I also remember an inkjet printer, I think it was a epson, with an ink discharge tube for priming the cartridge that traversed across the width of the printer so that a wheel on the carriage could push ink though it. It would always get clogged with dried ink.

    • @ZilogandMoto
      @ZilogandMoto 20 днів тому

      This is the one. Any of those Deskjets should suit your needs.

  • @kjjorgensen
    @kjjorgensen 21 день тому +128

    “I feel like I’m taking the plutonium out of the DeLorean.”
    Thank you for that one. 😂

  • @Theshadowsnose
    @Theshadowsnose 18 днів тому

    Hi Clint,
    if you want a '90s colour laser printer, I think the only option you have is one of HP ColorLaserJet printers.
    Colour laser printers weren't really common in the '90s and those available were mostly professional printers which were REALLY expensive... I mean they were like $3000+ in late '90s money.
    I had the joy of testing a ColorLaserJet5 in the Late 90s. It was HUGE, slow and used a lot of electricity... and the prints weren't as good as the ones from a halfway decent inkjet printer on good paper.
    The good thing about the HP printer was that it understands PostScript and HP PCL, so you should not have too many problems to get it working on most operating systems. It also came with a network interface (Ethernet or Token Ring) which may speed up printing since you have quite a bit of data to transfer to the printer for a full page of colour in 300 DPI or even more.
    Not sure if PostScript an the Network interface were standard or optional, so be aware to check if you want to buy one of those printers and want those options... and I'm sure you WILL want those features ;-)
    To be honest, I don't understand all the negativity towards ink printers.
    I had an Epson StylusColor II back in the days and it worked without any major issues.
    Yes, the print head was prone to getting clogged, especially if you used cheap 3rd party ink and yes, the original ink cartridges from Epson were expensive, but the print results were really good.
    I used it with Win NT4.0 and I had to download the driver from the (German) Epson mailbox... it was the most sophisticated printer driver I EVER experienced.
    You had tons of options for basically everything, a dozen different dithering patterns/methods, the lot.
    Just imagine 'Turbo Print' on steroids... if you are aware of Turbo Print ;-)
    But I also never experienced a printer from the bottom range, so maybe those were especially crappy.
    Nowadays, if you are complaining about Ink prices, you bought the wrong printer!
    I got myself an Epson 'EcoTank' printer and the Ink comes in bottles instead of cartridges.
    A 130 ml Black bottle is about 15€ and a 70 ml colour one is about 10€.
    And that's the genuine Epson one.
    3rd party ink is even cheaper and there is nothing that keeps you from using 3rd party ink.
    But with those prices, I don't think it is worth the bother to use 3rd party ink.
    I think Canon also offers similar printers, so you don't need to buy an Epson one if you don't like the brand.

  • @frugalprepper
    @frugalprepper 19 днів тому +1

    Used to work for a Canon service center. I repaired a LOT of these under warranty. 5-10 if them a day. I had cases of the carriage units in stock. They actually had an updated part that would not break. The print head part soak it in hot water for about 10 minutes and it will normally start flowing again. We also had problem with after market ink tanks leaking and the after market ink back then was acidic and would eat the copper pads off of carriage where the cartridge seated and made contact (that was way more common on the 600, 610, 620 and 6000 series though). The BJ-200 was the best printer ever. I hardly ever had to work on them and the Ink tanks lasted forever. They were Black and while. The BJC-210's were nice too, they just had a Black and White tank like the 200 and had a color one that you put in to print color. I threw out all of my old parts I had in storage about 7 years ago for all these printers. The scanner issue in normally that your parallel port or cable is not bi-directional. Also Make sure Windows the port type is set to ECP. I would try a different parallel port if you still have issues. Make sure none of you other cards are using IRQ 7 for LPT1 and you are using base address of 378 for LPT1

  • @Toonrick12
    @Toonrick12 21 день тому +127

    As much as we love old tech, we also love watching people suffer from said old tech not working as it should.

    • @excrono
      @excrono 21 день тому +1

      And not having to support them to resolve it.

    • @AaronPaden
      @AaronPaden 21 день тому +2

      This piece of crap is working *exactly* as it should 😆

  • @morlamweb
    @morlamweb 21 день тому +102

    I had this exact model of printer back in the 90s. In my experience, it had two operating modes: 1, it would grab multiple sheets at random, cruch them up, and block the printer, requiring a time-consuming process to untangle everything; or 2, it would grab a sheet, spit some random bits of ink on it, shake my desk violently as the printer head moved back and forth, and spit the paper out across the room. And always when you had to print a paper for school the next day.

    • @stephaniesmith4616
      @stephaniesmith4616 21 день тому +17

      I had one and it taught me that printers could absolutely smell deadlines. And I’d forgotten about our whole computer desk rocking back and forth. How a flat piece of paper could come out accordianed AND with a hole in it was a mystery.

    • @ChisakoYume
      @ChisakoYume 21 день тому +2

      This should be the dictionary entry to describe printers in general 😅

    • @Kaarl_Mills
      @Kaarl_Mills 21 день тому +1

      did you ever consider offering it a blood sacrifice or calling an exorcist?

    • @DerekLippold
      @DerekLippold 21 день тому

      I had one that was like that too. You were lucky if it didn’t grab a dozen pages at once and print half on one and half on another.

    • @viktorakhmedov3442
      @viktorakhmedov3442 21 день тому

      Yeah I remember certain HP printers of the day would do this thing where they just spit out page after page of symbols and gibberish until you turned it off or it ran out of paper.

  • @jhsevs
    @jhsevs 18 днів тому +2

    As someone who is poor, I feel your pain. Especially with the error messages that don’t tell you what the errors are. And that you’re supposed to just contact a service center that doesn’t exist anymore (or never existed in the first place in my country) and that you’re just supposed to buy a new one. Which also is built just the same way, not meant to last more than a year or two. Planned obsolescence.

  • @JimmyRaptis
    @JimmyRaptis 19 днів тому

    I had this printer back in the day. You had to buy the BC-20 cartridge which was the larger black one if you wanted to do any serious printing. As for the loose parts, someone messed with it. It was not like that from factory.
    My biggest headache back in the day was the whole head cleaning and the amount of ink wasted. Switched to refill kits with syringes until cheap generic carts on ebay became a thing.

  • @marcberm
    @marcberm 21 день тому +94

    5:48 Seeing a 24-year-old review of anything on Amazon feels kind of like a time capsule in itself!

    • @rommix0
      @rommix0 21 день тому +8

      True. Anything older than 5 years old is easily in a time capsule of its own. Just like old social media posts during the height of Covid.

  • @sinisterthoughts2896
    @sinisterthoughts2896 21 день тому +46

    wow... so many pristine examples of 90's printers performing exactly as they did out of the box in the 90's. that's craftsmanship.

  • @pontiumGR
    @pontiumGR 15 днів тому +2

    We used to have a bjc-4000 and the head was clogging all the time. My dad used to sink the head assembly into alcohol to fix it, but a hammer "accidentally" hit the printer one day and got replaced with an Epson-480. Another epic failure.
    As a suggestion for an old laser printer, I had a HP Laserjet 6L until 2012. Great 90s asthetic. Bulletproof thing, replaced it with a Samsung color laser printer.

    • @pontiumGR
      @pontiumGR 15 днів тому

      For a 90s inkjet, I would strongly suggest a HP Deskjet 840 or 880. They were pretty reliable and had a cool retractable mechanism for printed pages

  • @Oleg-dp2fh
    @Oleg-dp2fh 14 днів тому

    Wow, thanks for the video! Reminded me of my early experiences with computing in late 90s, early 2000s 😅
    I also think it is important to have such videos on the channel… at least as a warning to anyone thinking about getting into retro devices of any kind 😄

  • @nastybun
    @nastybun 21 день тому +44

    Back in the late 90s we followed what is still the best printer advice and bought a Brother mono laser. It was perfection. The only reason we replaced it was that a new Brother mono laser was cheaper than a new toner and drum for the old one.

    • @MrDuncl
      @MrDuncl 21 день тому +1

      I just had to repair my 21 year old HP Laserjet 1010 for the first time. A little solenoid inside was sticking so it picked up two sheets. At the time I bought it a new cartridge was more than I paid for the printer so I bought a refill kit. Third party cartridges are now so cheap I just buy those.
      Possibly my best computing purchase.

  • @OctoGuenon
    @OctoGuenon 20 днів тому +64

    Ink jet printers took many of us through the 5 stages of grief over the years, thanks for documenting this journey.

    • @M0rket
      @M0rket 18 днів тому

      The only thing it needs to be any more perfect, its a montage at the end, to the beats of Geto Boys.

  • @jamesleuthauser9336
    @jamesleuthauser9336 19 днів тому +2

    So talking one grognard to another, back in the day we used to keep on hand some really fine syringes to use with cleaning up machines like this. The isopropyl can only work so well by itself, it either needs massive time or considerable force when dealing with truly stuck dry-out. I'd expect, at least with the black, you also may have a clog in the head or arm itself instead of just in the carriage. The scanner issue seemed to either be a result of 1: your machine having communication issues meaning a card or port was suffering, most likely from inconsistent power delivery or 2: the scan module itself may have a contact pad that contacts and communicates inside the printer, meaning there's an inconsistent link in that chain somewhere. In regards to the laser printers, honestly there were no home-dedicated color lasers outside of apple until the mid/late 90's, so I'm not even sure what to recommend here. Buying some old and giant business class machine like a Ricoh or Xerox seems insane, but Toner holds up much better over long periods of no or little use, and ANY inkjet you get is going to have the same issues these ones did

  • @ElizabethFert
    @ElizabethFert 11 днів тому +1

    absolutely a subscriber now, i can't miss these videos! ️

  • @Esperian
    @Esperian 21 день тому +55

    I HAD THIS THING BACK THEN
    IT SUCKED EVEN THEN.
    I saw the photo of the box and hours and hours of fighting this thing when a paper was due flooded back into my mind...

    • @wobblyboost1582
      @wobblyboost1582 21 день тому +1

      Completely dysfunctional but hey, they were 100% Y2K OK! 😆

  • @craelectronics
    @craelectronics 21 день тому +52

    I remember that stupid BJC-4300 that dried within a week of not using it and wasted a fifth of the super expensive colors with each self cleaning cycle and it still made stripes. This video is the most accurate late 90s experience you could have asked for. Back then I only didn't know that I wasn't the only one suffering... but obviously the whole world did. Thank you for bringing peace to this part of my memories.

    • @drewstemen9597
      @drewstemen9597 21 день тому +2

      Mine was a BJC-4200, but I suffered exactly the same. I hated that thing so much. We spent *so much* money on ink for partially-printed pages and test patterns and... *sigh*

    • @AlecBickerton
      @AlecBickerton 19 днів тому

      @@drewstemen9597 Had the same POS. Everytime I needed to pprint anything, the ink had dried out. It was so damn slow.

  • @munnsie100
    @munnsie100 18 днів тому

    My parents owned an early Bubble Jet model, the sounds of that print engine (and the enraging issues) instantly brought back plenty of memories...

  • @suttoncoldfield9318
    @suttoncoldfield9318 23 години тому

    I worked for a CAD software company. The lady secretary (had little in-depth technical computer knowledge but was very competent none-the-less) had a little inkjet printer on her desk for doing simple one-off pages and envelope labels, save her messing with the big main office complicated thing.
    The night before her birthday, when she'd turned off her computer and gone home, we sent a message to her printer, which obviously got put in the print queue.
    Next morning, she sits down at her desk, switches her computer on, and after it booted up, immediately spat out "Happy Birthday, Sandra".
    Obviously, we all denied any knowledge, "must be magic Sandra".

  • @nottiification
    @nottiification 21 день тому +94

    I gave up on having a printer decades ago. With the ink nonsense & the other ways they try to "monetize" you nowadays its just not worth it to own a printer. If i need a hard copy of something i put it on a thumb drive & go to the library & use their printers.
    Who wouldve thought that the best argument for the "paperless office" would come from printer manufacturers?

    • @Blackadder75
      @Blackadder75 21 день тому +13

      Inkjet were always crap for home use, but cheap laser printers have been fine. I bought a Samsung 8 years ago for around $200 / €200. Even if don't use it for a year, it still fires up fine and prints my yearly christmas card or whatever odd job it gets. I have bought new toner once, in 2020. In the first years of usage I used it weekly, because I had a hobby that involved a lot of paperwork . Nowadays it is hardly used but still works.

    • @umageddon
      @umageddon 21 день тому +4

      If youre willing to pay more, get a good color laser printer and most of these issues will be gone

    • @thesteelrodent1796
      @thesteelrodent1796 21 день тому +5

      nowadays (especially with HP and Dell), printers come with privacy violating spyware included and require an always-on internet connection to function. It's an absolute joke what they try to get away with

    • @GlycerinZ
      @GlycerinZ 21 день тому +2

      i bought a laser printer many years ago and have no problems!!

    • @the_kombinator
      @the_kombinator 21 день тому

      I've got retro printers at home, both networked laser printers HP's from the early 2000s and they're mostly trouble free

  • @quadmods
    @quadmods 21 день тому +55

    Yells "I shouldn't have smelled that"... My new catch phrase. Best 😂

    • @Lurch-Bot
      @Lurch-Bot 20 днів тому +2

      Probably has toluene in it and could legitimately get high from it.

  • @marcosretrotech704
    @marcosretrotech704 18 днів тому

    If you want to have a 90's inkjet printer, I would recommend an epson stylus color 400/600 series printer. While the heads are harder to clean they do have fewer issues and tend to work relatively reliably as long as you use it a lot but overall are pretty good printers. You will though need to refill the cartridges yourself but that isn't as bad as it sounds. I have an Epson stylus color 640 and 440 and they don't give me too many issues. The best way to clean the heads is to take them out of the printer and soak the heads repeatedly in warm water until the water is clear and then very quickly put them back in the printer and place the filled cartridges into the printer and run the head clean until the picture comes out clear and from then on you just run a head clean once a week and it should work perfectly.

  • @whispersfromthedale8139
    @whispersfromthedale8139 17 днів тому +2

    Don’t be sad, Clint. You still managed to provide the true experience of owning one of these.

  • @matthewhiggins1984
    @matthewhiggins1984 21 день тому +106

    Clint accidentally huffing off gassed bubble jet ink was the highlight of this video.

  • @roytherocketparsons9096
    @roytherocketparsons9096 21 день тому +64

    I remember there was a time in the 2000s that it was basically the same price to buy a new printer with ink cartridge rather than buy a replacement ink cartridge

    • @vincentikenstein8920
      @vincentikenstein8920 21 день тому +14

      Still true today

    • @yoghurrt1
      @yoghurrt1 21 день тому +3

      I'll surprise you, it's still current in few situations. It's better just to stay away from cheap (HP) ink printers or ink printers at all, depending what do you expect from printer.

    • @middleagebrotips3454
      @middleagebrotips3454 21 день тому +3

      They figure it out and started to put less ink in the starters or even put in a chip with lower counter

    • @greenaum
      @greenaum 21 день тому +5

      @@yoghurrt1 Ah man, to live in a time when HP stuff is called cheap and unreliable! Bill and Dave are turning in their graves. I can only imagine HP licensed their good name to some horrible Chinese company. Whatever they got for it, it wasn't worth it.
      HP used to be known for top-end instrumentation, machines nobody else would ever even imagine, never mind manufacture. Volt meters with 8 digits after the decimal point! Labs were full of HP stuff, it was well-engineered and made to last. The HP name was priceless, not so long ago. Now they either make, or license, terrible printers, though all consumer-grade printers are terrible.

    • @knoxduder
      @knoxduder 21 день тому

      I remember that !

  • @_B_K_
    @_B_K_ 15 днів тому +2

    I've always hated inkjet printers. Sitting unused for a few months means replacing cartridges which would cost as much as a new printer. I switched to a laser printer about 10 years ago and never looked back.

  • @EsotericArctos
    @EsotericArctos 4 дні тому

    I had some kind of HP DeskJet printer back in the 90's. Can't remember the model, but it was inkjet, but it also had a heating element that use to dry the ink on the way through to stop it smudging. It was an absolutely brilliant printer, but was only monochrome. Absolutely loved that printer.

  • @Arkticsnowman
    @Arkticsnowman 21 день тому +32

    When I saw the title of this video, the first thing I thought was, "This is going to be a big waste of time, energy and money." I started my technician career working for Xerox, so I've seen and worked on every type of print engine from ink jet to high volume commercial. This is exactly how these printers are designed to fail. Ink jet printers are supposed to only last 3 years (max) with recommended usage. Even commercial ink jet machines required a print head replacement after 2 or 3 years. I hated every single one in my territory.
    As for a laser printer of that vintage, more bad news. Ink jet printers were making huge leaps in photo printing at the time. This put pressure on the big companies to pour money in to advance the toner and developer in their machines. Colour toner machines were putting out dark, muddy photo prints. Lots of innovation happened which was great for pushing the quality of both wet and dry ink engines. Unfortunately this resulted in about a 5 year life span of dry toner. Developer and toner was getting much better to use less toner (part of the muddy picture problem) and smaller particles to deliver toner to the page more accurately. Some commercial printers might have had longer toner support but I doubt anything would be later than 10 years. This is also the time when machines were moving from an analog engine to digital. So basically lots happening in the printing world with a large turnover of both technology and supplies.

    • @BrooksMoses
      @BrooksMoses 20 днів тому +2

      So clearly what he needs is the early-1990s Tektronix solid-ink printer that my advisor had when I was an undergrad. He used it for printing overheads for project proposals, and apparently it easily paid for itself in convincing funding agencies that we were Serious Researchers, but wow was that a machine. It was basically a huge finicky tank -- large enough to make laser printers of the era look compact, and very solid when it was working correctly. But when it wasn't, it had failure states that "normal" printers hadn't even dreamed of.
      My favorite failure was when the final "fusing" hot-roller failed. It was still able to deposit little dots of solid ink on the paper in the right colors, so when you looked at the printout it looked almost okay -- but, since the ink was in little solid dots rather than spread out, the transparencies were effectively black-and-white when projected.

    • @LatitudeSky
      @LatitudeSky 19 днів тому +1

      You should see the state of the art Xerox Baltoro inkjet printer. Absolute trash. A Frankenstein nightmare of modules from different machines that occasionally produce poor quality print, but mostly jam and don't work.

  • @ALC0LITE
    @ALC0LITE 21 день тому +47

    It's crazy how a crappy, beige-grey, paper muncher from a quarter of a century ago can be so nostalgia inducing

    • @edwardklein5770
      @edwardklein5770 20 днів тому +1

      I don't think nostalgia is the word we're looking for here...

  • @megadjc192
    @megadjc192 17 днів тому

    In running those printers I learned that messing around with the ecp/epp settings along with i/o and irq settings in the bios helped solve a lot of the connectivity problems. It was still a nightmare though. Anything other than a dot matrix printer was pretty much gonna be a fight.

  • @unikron2003
    @unikron2003 18 днів тому

    I know these videos probably frustrate you but man its funny hearing your comments and frustrations. Reminds me soooo much of dealing with many tech purchases in the 90s.

  • @SuppressedOfficial
    @SuppressedOfficial 21 день тому +31

    Don't feel bad. It works exactly like every printer my family had back in the 90s!

    • @dashcharger24
      @dashcharger24 21 день тому +4

      They worked fine the day before, but failed when you needed them the most.

    • @craelectronics
      @craelectronics 21 день тому +2

      @@dashcharger24 They still do so nowadays. It's a printer thing.

  • @madigorfkgoogle9349
    @madigorfkgoogle9349 19 днів тому +62

    I have a suggestion for you, if you want a inkjet printer from 90s, always go after HP. Why? HP has cartridge and head on same assembly, so every time you exchange the ink cartridge you get a new printhead as well. First check if new cartridges are available, and if they do get it. This assures you that the printhead is not dried up. Happy printing.

    • @GuillermoFrontera
      @GuillermoFrontera 19 днів тому +2

      My HP DeskJet 930c worked perfect for 10 years. I cant complaint.

    • @xalataf3365
      @xalataf3365 19 днів тому +14

      Is this the only time where you actually want an HP printer?

    • @donmoore7785
      @donmoore7785 18 днів тому +5

      I note that the premise in your statement is that someone *wants* an inkjet from the 90's.

    • @061Hitachi
      @061Hitachi 18 днів тому

      @@xalataf3365 My old workplace kept some old pc's just because of those old HP laser printers from late 90's. They never broke down and never had issues.

    • @thebirdhandler5963
      @thebirdhandler5963 18 днів тому

      I was going to say the exact same thing!

  • @WierdGoku1
    @WierdGoku1 18 днів тому

    I remember having a BJC-1000 series printer with its one cartridge at a time system. You could either print color or black, but not both at the same time. It also had a cartridge box for keeping whichever cartridge you weren't using in. It made "black" (more like a dark green) by combining all 3 colors at once.
    It worked ok, but it had a tendency to fail on big (more than about 15 page) prints randomly

  • @VintageStuff
    @VintageStuff 19 днів тому

    1996, my family bought a Win95 PC and a Canon BJC-4100 printer. Great bang for the buck at the time, it lasted us a handful of years. Until the print head clogged- and your video was like a flashback to younger me. I favored the HP Color Inkjet 870/890/895 printers for MANY years after that because the print head would get replaced with the ink cartridge. But eventually those printers succumbed to other mechanical failures. I've used laser ever since. I'm rocking a second-hand, late 90's HP Color Laserjet 4550DN but it's ENORMOUS. The internet says a HP Color Laserjet 5 would be its slightly older alternative. There's tons of 90's HP monochrome models I could recommend if you just wanted monochrome.