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Deb
June 26th, 2020, 01:57 PM
If something goes wrong with my computer, I can fix it. I must admit I'm rather limited to software solutions as now that I'm entering my eighth decade I find the awkwardness of working inside the box of tricks leads to many aches and pains, but mostly I manage.

Printers are another matter. I have no idea how printers work though I am very grateful that they do. I have a feeling that they run on spells rather than engineering. If you need to get one fixed you should call an alchemist. We have a wonderful laser printer. It chucks out pages of beautiful script very fast and nearly silently. It is also remarkably cheap to run compared with an inkjet. It sits under the desk ready to do our bidding.

Or rather it did. It had a paper jam one day. We cleared the paper jam but it seemed to think it still had a paper jam. Then it stopped believing paper was loaded when it was. It was so certain that there was no paper that I began to doubt the evidence of my eyes.

We hauled it out from under the desk and carried it through to sit on the dining room table to get a good look at it. I could see about fifty pages of A4 - or at least the edge of them. I pulled the paper tray out and yes, that really was A4 paper, not a mirage. We pulled all the bits off the printer that we could, examined them closely in total ignorance, then put it all back together and connected it up again.

It worked! It printed a whole multi-page document with its usual beauty and perfection. Problem solved! We celebrated quietly and went away. The next day we needed to print a thing. The printer said no. It had no paper. We could see that it still had lots of paper but it insisted that it had no paper.

A friend of ours, in such a situation, put on his heaviest boots and stamped on an expensive recalcitrant printer until it lay in thousands of bits. I confess I considered the same course of action. But I didn't do it. I do become insanely angry at the stubbornness and spite of inanimate objects but crazed violence is not my style. I hand-wrote addresses on packages for a few days and thought about the problem.

In the end I entered a description of the problem and the model number of the printer in a search engine and got about 3,000 answers, one of which eventually proved helpful. Another poor, miserable soul had experienced the same fault and had written to some online help facility. It turns out to be a recognised error. There is a firmware upgrade which cures it! I hunted down the upgrade and downloaded it. It was in a zip file which you must expand into another directory before you can do anything with it. Considering the bandwidth we have nowadays I fail to see the necessity for pesky zip files but I did as I was told and was eventually in a position to apply the firmware upgrade. It required switching off the printer and repeatedly pressing buttons - which seemed very like a spell - but it worked. I went on a printing spree and it continued to work.

I no longer hate my printer.

Jon Szanto
June 26th, 2020, 02:05 PM
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

~ Arthur C. Clark

Chrissy
June 26th, 2020, 02:26 PM
Deb, when you have a couple of spare days please can I employ you to come down here to fix mine? We have a total of two printers: one laser that's really old, and one inkjet that's not quite so old. The laser printer never works and the inkjet works when it wants to.

One day the laser printer is going into the bin. It's a shame because it used to print nicely. :(

INeedAFinancialAdvisor
June 26th, 2020, 02:53 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjsSr3z5nVk

Chrissy
June 26th, 2020, 03:02 PM
I believe I might manage a more sophisticated approach. :) I will just walk outside one day and drop it in the rubbish bin. :)

FredRydr
June 26th, 2020, 03:12 PM
Is this going to be one of those stories that ends with the protagonist simply waking from a bad dream?

INeedAFinancialAdvisor
June 26th, 2020, 03:20 PM
I believe I might manage a more sophisticated approach. :) I will just walk outside one day and drop it in the rubbish bin. :)

That’s not nearly as satisfying as destroying it with a baseball bat

Deb
June 26th, 2020, 05:38 PM
Deb, when you have a couple of spare days please can I employ you to come down here to fix mine? We have a total of two printers: one laser that's really old, and one inkjet that's not quite so old. The laser printer never works and the inkjet works when it wants to.

One day the laser printer is going into the bin. It's a shame because it used to print nicely. :(

I'll send you a spell.

Deb
June 27th, 2020, 03:19 AM
Another friend bought an expensive stereo needle cartridge. It didn't work. He tried everything with it but it wouldn't work and for some reason he couldn't return it. In a controlled cold rage he took it into the workshop, put it in the vice and slowly crushed it flat.

TSherbs
June 27th, 2020, 05:34 AM
Ere I am, JH

The ghost in the machine.

Ron Z
June 27th, 2020, 06:33 AM
One does have limits...... (https://mainstreetpens.com/wordpress/?p=86)

Chrissy
June 27th, 2020, 07:56 AM
One does have limits...... (https://mainstreetpens.com/wordpress/?p=86)
Wow!

Johnny_S
June 27th, 2020, 08:57 AM
"now that I'm entering my eighth decade"

What!!!!

Now that really is sorcery, you have all the writing panache of a mere youth.

Not that panache is limited to the bailiwick of the young but you know what I mean

Deb
June 27th, 2020, 09:28 AM
"now that I'm entering my eighth decade"

What!!!!

Now that really is sorcery, you have all the writing panache of a mere youth.

Not that panache is limited to the bailiwick of the young but you know what I mean

I thank you kindly on my husband's behalf. He is a spry old codger.

INeedAFinancialAdvisor
June 27th, 2020, 10:03 AM
One does have limits...... (https://mainstreetpens.com/wordpress/?p=86)

This is how my first (And so far only) attempt at repairing a late generation Sheaffer Vac-fil ended.

Under the heading "misery loves company" i feel better knowing that even the best have this happen to them sometimes. (of course, in my case I SCREWED UP, and that's not the case here...)

FredRydr
June 27th, 2020, 10:11 AM
This is how my first (And so far only) attempt at repairing a late generation Sheaffer Vac-fil ended....
Ack! You mean, the vise?! Surely it wasn't a Valiant or Crest DeLuxe.

Chuck Naill
June 27th, 2020, 10:20 AM
Crest Sheaffer's are good writers, especially those with lever fill.

INeedAFinancialAdvisor
June 27th, 2020, 10:50 AM
It was one of the later ones, with the inner sleeve which is made of VERY THIN celluloid...

which then snapped off. right at the feed. making it unrecoverable.

it was not a crest. or sentinel (if they made those... donno...) ...

and no, not the vice, the smashing with hammer part.

VertOlive
June 27th, 2020, 09:27 PM
Per the head IT manager of Sequenom Molecular Medicine, “Printers are the Devil.”

Deb
June 28th, 2020, 03:07 AM
Per the head IT manager of Sequenom Molecular Medicine, “Printers are the Devil.”

This concurs with my experience. Sometimes, in the half light under the desk, I can see horns and a lashing tail...