Disposable Culture

[bcholmes]

The toner on my printer has run out.

I have an old IBM 4019 printer that I bought around-about 1991. It was the smallest laser printer on the market back then, and it has this really cool solid toner cartridge that lasts a long time. How long? Well, it's just run out now. Eleven years. Not bad, I say.

Thing is, replacing the toner cartridge is probably gonna be more expensive than just getting a whole new printer. And the printer doesn't have that much memory and I'd rather have something that had more than 300 DPI resolution.

So I'm thinking of getting a new printer.

But the idea of throwing away a printer because the toner cartridge ran out is really squicking me. Hmmm....

Comments

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

wow... 4019 is a real workhorse, provided you luck out and avoid the “jamming on nothing” issue. Honestly, though, I spent more than the price of a decentish inkjet overhauling a Laserwriter IIg just to avoid inkjets altogether. I can’t tell that much difference between 300 dpi and “1200 dpi” inkjet, aside from the fact that laser doesn’t bleed into the paper, nor does it run if the paper gets damp or something spilled on them.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

You can notice a difference if you use the super-duper paper that contains a tacky coating which prevents the ink from bleeding badly. Our colour inkjet at work definitely produces better results than our laser does if you're willing to throw enough money at buying nice paper.