I totally approve of the phrase "shit tons". Are you ex-military? I also totally agree with a HP laserjet.

I am still using a HP 840C as Main Printer

HP Laserjet. Pick one. 5 would be good. 1200 if you need to save desk space, and it has parallel AND USB.

No ink printers for me, thanks.

I second the 1200 - I've used one for years. It prints well and is quite fast. It's more late '90s - early '00s but I guess it wouldn't look out of place with your retro setup thanks to its beige color.

I second HP Laserjets, but not the cheaper ones (5L, 1000,1100,1200). Laserjet 2000 is a better option, but keep in mind that you'll probably need a fuser kit.

Also, don't buy any Deskjet. They are durable, but the waste ink depot may be full and that parts are difficult to find (also, if anyone put your printer upside-down, waste ink will flow and render your printer unusable.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Do they function like most laser printers? (Refillable toner cartridge etc.) I really have only owned Inkjet printers so it would be my first laser printer. Is ink obtainable still?

Cartridges can be refilled at home but it's a damn messy job (and that stuff is not healthy at all). It's easier to deal with a toner cartridge recycling shop. They refill, repair, replace the drum if necessary (it's built in the cartridge on some printers) and in some cases do cross-shipping. You send them your old cartridge, they send you a new one for about what you'd pay for a refill kit.

Main advantage of laser printers is that they can just sit there for years without doing anything and the printhead won't clog or dry since it's not liquid ink. Toner is more or less a mix of carbon black and plastic dust. Also, toner cartridges last MUCH longer than inkjet cartridges. You can easily look at 3000-5000 pages instead of 250-500. Some bigger models can do 15k-20k pages on one toner cartridge.

For lack of a parallel port to use newer systems on older printers, you can always get a JetDirect module or card (if the printer supports the card) for next to nothing. It'll turn it into a network printer and it is usually far more reliable than usb-parallel port adapters.

Since the beginning of my computing era, I have had various printers.
In the beginning (early to mid-late 90's) I used a dot matrix printer, a 9 dot Star LC-20. It was very reliable, however equally noisy and slow.
Having one, even standing next to a retro rig, would take away all pleasure, just by looking at it. Brrr.., nevermore!

Ink jet printers were next step. They were much quieter, image quality was really good, they did print colour, but there were problems with clogged nozzles if I did print not often enough (especially on colour cartridges), or sometimes ink spilled inside (during paper jam for example), and it was a problem to clean it thoroughly. I have had a different models from HP and Lexmark, and all suffered (to more or less degree) all above problems.

Finally lasers had arrived. It is not important if you print a two pages per month, or one hundred a day. You turn them on, and they work. It is not a problem to find a model with LPT connector, or built-in print-server (I think even ancient HP LJ4P has a Ethernet option).
Go and get a laser printer 😎

This thread made me miss my old Okidata dot matrix printer.

Any love for Epson?

I had the stylus 300 back in 98 (super slow and the ink was extremely cheap, 5 dollars tri color cartridge and 3 black)

Then in 2000 the stylus 480 (same above)

Then in 2005 the stylis 777 (cheap but this one came with chips in the cartridge)

And finally in 2007 the Cx3900 wich works fine even today

The first 3 have parallel.

If an inkjet has stood idle for too long, it may be clogged beyond the capability of cleaning cycles - manual cleaning is very tricky

Am I really seeing inkjet nostalgia?

Keep those cheap, cloggy, smeary money flushers away from me. 😀

swaaye wrote:

Am I really seeing inkjet nostalgia?

Keep those cheap, cloggy, smeary money flushers away from me. 😀

Yeah, if I honestly had to pick a good printer from the 90s to match up with a retro rig, I'd go with an HP LaserJet 4 or 5 series. I've heard those things are near immortal.

My LJ5M has developed a fault where the corona wire that discharges the drum is no longer effective. I need to look in to a repair, should be self-serviceable.

I remember using a HP DeskJet 510 at the time.

Logistics wrote:

This thread made me miss my old Okidata dot matrix printer.

I actually have one of those! 🤣

Except mine is for use with Commodore machines so it didn't come with any drivers or any way to hook it up to a PC. I also don't have any tractor paper.

Thanks again guys! Once again you have really helped me out when it came to a hardware decision. I will most certainly be going out and buying a HP laserjet printer in the future. 😁

LaserJet 4M's are bombproof and everything STILL supports it.

What do you guys think is too much for a laserjet printer? Are they worth a couple hundred like I'm seeing on the internet?

How much does a toner refill generally cost? I mean if I find one that works for cheap am I going to be paying through the nose for ink?

Also swaaye why do you keep deleting your posts. 🤣

King_Corduroy wrote:

What do you guys think is too much for a laserjet printer? Are they worth a couple hundred like I'm seeing on the internet?

Brand new ones, yes. Old ones, hell no. You should be able to find used/slow laser printers for stupidly cheap.

Toner costs vary a lot depending on the model. Usually, the more common the printer, the cheaper the toner (that's in cost-per-page, not plain cartridge price).