Hmmm almost an Ultimate Retro for printers... https://www.nefec.org/upm/ not hugely comprehensive though.

My trick with the canon cartridges when they gummed up, which usually got them flowing again.:
Wad up an uncushioned paper towel/napkin or kleenex, fold into thick wad, drench in alcohol 70% or better IPA is what I generally used, press the face of the cart up and down on the wad, kinda pump up and down a bit, when it starts making equal splotches on a clean bit of towel it's good. By equal splotches I mean appears to be making an ink mark all the way down it's line of holes that are approx equal in size. If you get kinda upside down triangle, or stretched figure 8 overall pattern, then the ones at the bottom or in middle aren't flowing clear.

edit: if this is a dry cart you are trying to reuse sometime later. Give it an excercise with alcohol first, give it a small squirt of ink not a whole fill, leave it sitting head down for a day, then excercise it on the pad again and see if it's marking... if so give it a quick try, if you get a print, fill it up all the way... if not, give it another go on the alcohol pad... if it still won't go after that, check you weren't too too stingy with the ink squirt, if you're sure about that, then leave it soaking head down in alcohol somewhere for a few days... probably need a small puddle in the bottom of a jar you can seal so it doesn't evaporate away. One last try... if it's not good now, gotta give up on it I guess, unless you wanna get creative and apply shop air to it or something.

You guys are starting to give me some hope about my Deskjet. I may have it serviced and get some remanufactured cartridges for it to see what happens.

Rushed reply before I read the topic to avoid biases:

Anything HP before 2012 or so (whenever they started taking down manuals and drivers for old PCs), can't really say what's up with them but - especially in printer space - they turned from kings to crap so quickly!

Family color printer is still a PSC 1315 that probably cost 3 digits around 2005, so I bought a Deskjet F2290 (or so it seems from an image search) around 2009 which is pretty much its cheaper remake, gave it away around 2014 still in perfectly working condition 😀

The former, given its age, has excellent "forwards and backwards" compatibility between proprietary drivers and HPLIP (to get back at my first statement, basically any of today's HPs need proprietary firmware, where even a "classic" $40 inkjet didn't!!!)

Now, for true compatibility-kings you need something supporting a real standard like the various variants of PCL/PostScript/ESC-P, which these aren't, but almost every "classic" laser should do; generally speaking, standalones almost always fare better than all-in-ones (unless you go all-in with a full size floor standing office copier, I guess!)

As for the question in the title - Boycott consumer-grade products, especially those made after said technology becomes mainstream. Equally applies to PCs and most if not any of their parts and accessories 😀

---
Now for the replies:

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-30, 08:53:

Lasers personally I think its hard to surpass the HP Laserjet 4 series. These things never died and were thrown away because they were slow rather then not working.

I did that last year - of course it was rusty AND a consumer model (the 4L) 😀

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-03-30, 16:41:

That is simply one modern example, there are plenty of others. (WSD port monitors comes to mind).
In short modern home inkjet printers are cheaply made, cheaply sold and aren't designed to be serviceable or repairable in any way. Much like most all modern consumer electronics.

WSD is a good thing for modern all-in-ones since it seems to be the first practical standard for scanners! (And AirPrint-sponsored "URF" for printing, if it doesn't support the standards mentioned above that is!)

Deliberately didn't mention the HL-1112 I bought in 2014 to print university lessons and the MFC-L2700 that quickly replaced it in 2017 or so (both Brothers) - first one is indeed a bottom barrel product requiring proprietary drivers and having absymal memory (good build quality, though!), second one is a much better all-in-one (with AirPrint and WSD 😀 ) but still apparently designed to do its best to obstruct you from using a "minority OS" 😉

sliderider wrote on 2023-03-30, 11:31:

The thing I've learned, is NEVER buy a color inkjet printer. They will blend some cyan in with your black printing, so your color cartridge gets used up faster. I have a B&W laser prnter next to me, that I use now, because 99.9% of what I print, only requires black.

Last one I remember that didn't do that, was maybe a BJC-230 or something around there, let you lock in B/W or color in the driver config page. Printed in B/W without any color ink available.

That might have been the one I stabbed to death, trying to clear a humid weather paper jam when sheets bunched up in the feed, used a butter knife trying to pry a wad out, somehow slipped and stabbed through to the flexible ribbon to the print head, and despite only being a butter knife, tore it.

When I was a kid we had a Canon printer that let you choose between pure B&W or color blended.

the yellow thing in b/w prints is for spying https://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which … y-tracking-dots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

Ryccardo wrote on 2023-03-31, 19:09:

Rushed reply before I read the topic to avoid biases: […]
Show full quote

Rushed reply before I read the topic to avoid biases:

Anything HP before 2012 or so (whenever they started taking down manuals and drivers for old PCs), can't really say what's up with them but - especially in printer space - they turned from kings to crap so quickly!

Family color printer is still a PSC 1315 that probably cost 3 digits around 2005, so I bought a Deskjet F2290 (or so it seems from an image search) around 2009 which is pretty much its cheaper remake, gave it away around 2014 still in perfectly working condition 😀

The former, given its age, has excellent "forwards and backwards" compatibility between proprietary drivers and HPLIP (to get back at my first statement, basically any of today's HPs need proprietary firmware, where even a "classic" $40 inkjet didn't!!!)

Now, for true compatibility-kings you need something supporting a real standard like the various variants of PCL/PostScript/ESC-P, which these aren't, but almost every "classic" laser should do; generally speaking, standalones almost always fare better than all-in-ones (unless you go all-in with a full size floor standing office copier, I guess!)

As for the question in the title - Boycott consumer-grade products, especially those made after said technology becomes mainstream. Equally applies to PCs and most if not any of their parts and accessories 😀

---
Now for the replies:

chinny22 wrote on 2023-03-30, 08:53:

Lasers personally I think its hard to surpass the HP Laserjet 4 series. These things never died and were thrown away because they were slow rather then not working.

I did that last year - of course it was rusty AND a consumer model (the 4L) 😀

Jasin Natael wrote on 2023-03-30, 16:41:

That is simply one modern example, there are plenty of others. (WSD port monitors comes to mind).
In short modern home inkjet printers are cheaply made, cheaply sold and aren't designed to be serviceable or repairable in any way. Much like most all modern consumer electronics.

WSD is a good thing for modern all-in-ones since it seems to be the first practical standard for scanners! (And AirPrint-sponsored "URF" for printing, if it doesn't support the standards mentioned above that is!)

Deliberately didn't mention the HL-1112 I bought in 2014 to print university lessons and the MFC-L2700 that quickly replaced it in 2017 or so (both Brothers) - first one is indeed a bottom barrel product requiring proprietary drivers and having absymal memory (good build quality, though!), second one is a much better all-in-one (with AirPrint and WSD 😀 ) but still apparently designed to do its best to obstruct you from using a "minority OS" 😉

WSD WOULD be a good thing if it worked as intended. It doesn't and has never worked properly. It absolutely makes things more difficult for the end user.

I have an Epson LX-800 that still work fine along with another dot matrix Raven (don't remember the model, would need to dig it up, still print really dark).

All other printers I got after that are dead.
Biggest problem are Inkjet printers imo, You have to use it a lot but now they are scamming more and more with the ink.
If you don't use it a lot then they endup getting issue with stuck nozzle and drying ink

CISS modded inkjet printer can be nice but again, use it often and if it work well for you, it might stop working well for you if you move to a different elevation (constant air build-up in the tubes, have to purge after 2 day of non use)

So my next printer will be laser...

Interesting thread, since I've been wanting to try to find a way to use my vintage printers on my network.
(I decided to set up a win98 box and hook at least one of them up to it, and try to share it from there).

I've never owned a laser printer. I kept waiting for prices to come down and then waiting for prices to come down on color laserjets. Now I have little use for a printer except entertainment.
My current inkjet printer is probably the best inkjet I've used; Canon MG2900. I've always had better luck with Canon inkjets than Epson or HP.

The MG2900's printout is fast enough, it's quality is good enough, and it's ink lasts long enough.

My second favorite inkjet is my old Canon BJC-80. I want to get a battery adapter for it to make it portable. And, of course, I need to get some "new" cartridges for it.
Yes, it would clog sometimes, but I could just either use alcohol or soak the cartridge in hot water, even to get it working again. (dipping the tip of a clogged fountain pen in isopropyl works for it, too).
There was also a scanner attachment for it, which I imagine would be slow but cool.

I got one of those epsons with separate cartridges for each base color... omg what a nightmare that was. Any time any one of the cartridges got low, it wouldn't print anything.

My favorite printer is my old Panasonic KX-P2130 with the color upgrade (making it a 2135?) 24 pin, fairly fast for dot matrix, decent color blending. I always loved it.
I have a Gorilla Banana printer, which is the equivalent of the Tandy DMP100 and CBM 1525 printer. I *really* want to use that for some stuff. It has no lower-case descender and looks very computery in a retro kind of way.

I also have an Okimate 20; I used to have an Okimate 10 for my C64, but got rid of it long ago. The Okimate-20 is... very... very... slow. It uses plastic thermal ribbons with 3 colors; unlike a normal cloth ribbon, once you've used it, it's done. And it wastes a lot of space on the ribbon, iirc. But the cool thing about it is, if you can find some thermal fax paper... it doesn't need a ribbon.
(I need to get some...)

I've also a Tandy CGP-115 and 2 CBM 1520 plotters, but I don't know if they count. I need to get them some new cogs. I always liked to make color listings of my source code (6502 assembler, mostly) with the 1520.

At work we have an industrial dot-matrix printer that I lust over periodically. It stands about 4 ft tall, and thankfully has a noise cover. It prints like a bat out of hell, the ribbon alone is as big as my BJC-80, probably sucks a ton of electricity, costs a fortune... and I want one.

I have had all three: Dot Matrix, Injet, Laser over the decades. One of the best recent colored Laser is my Samsung C410w with Ether, USB and Wi-Fi (Samsung Direct). Got it thru Amazon on a Black Friday special for $100 in 2015, still works great !
Is Networked and prints from XP, Win7 and Win10 just fine 😀 Do have a newer Samsung Laser printer (now part of HP) and it also is OK but no ethernet so no direct networking 🙁
Added: I do think the Canon Inkjets were far better than HP or others....

I got my HP Deskjet 842C in to a printer repair and ink refill shop. They managed to find me two sets of cartridges and refilled them (took them a while).

Today I tried it out with an 800x600 photo on Windows 95 with the original driver. Attached see the results, along with the original photo.

When I printed the photos, selecting “Glossy” revealed a menu with two options: “PhotoREt” and “600x1200dpi”. PhotoREt looks awful. Color bleeding and too dark. 600x1200dpi looks amazing, the only print from this thing so far that has had anything close to “photo quality”.

Upper left: Canon Matte Photo Paper, settings: “Plain Paper” (there was no matte option), “Normal”

Lower left: Canon Matte, “Plain Paper”, “Best”

Upper right: Epson Glossy, “HP Premium Plus Glossy”, “PhotoREt”

Lower right: Epson Glossy, “HP Premium Plus Glossy”, “600x1200dpi”

I never had a good experience with a inkjet other than when it was new. All the ones I had were manufactured E-waste, and the ink was more expensive than the printer. Apperently the newer ECO fill stuff is a lot better. On the contrary all of the black and white laser printers I've ever had have been solid, and unlink the injets they were built to be repaired and could be fixed if somthing ever wore out with them. Where as a inkjet wears out you have to just toss it out.

Yes I've ended up hating every printer I've owned since the 90's, all dot matrix and inkjet. But a couple of years ago I bought a cheap-ish Lexmark black and white laser and it never lets me down. The toner it came with (not a full cartridge of course) lasted ages and it connects to everything, wired and wireless.

Warlord wrote on 2023-05-11, 21:59:

I never had a good experience with a inkjet other than when it was new. All the ones I had were manufactured E-waste, and the ink was more expensive than the printer. Apperently the newer ECO fill stuff is a lot better. On the contrary all of the black and white laser printers I've ever had have been solid, and unlink the injets they were built to be repaired and could be fixed if somthing ever wore out with them. Where as a inkjet wears out you have to just toss it out.

My first black laser was a used HP 4 in late 1990's, that was replace by a used Lexmark T520 and later added my first color laser a Konika Minolta DL2430 . They both lasted until 2015 with bare minimal repair work.
Now have two Samsung CL-4xx series color lasers, one from 2015 and another from 2017 and both still work as if new.
Sure have had some color inkjets but as you say: "never had a good experience with a inkjet other than when it was new" AND after it went thru the first couple sets of ink carts it was all down hill.
Will never buy another inkjet.

I bought a basic Laserjet 1018 over a year ago and am very pleased. It just works.