R.I.P. Printer

[lesliepear]

My HP 890C printer is dead. I suspect it died of old age (I've had it since 1998). It was a good printer. I remember printing test samples at stores when I was shopping for it to check the black ink on the printout and going back and forth between Computer City (long gone) and Compusa in NJ to get it - HP printers were pretty much price fixed back then. I think it was 199 or 299, I've probably got the receipt somewhere.

This is only the second printer I've had, even though I've owned 5 computers since 1981(TRS-80, Tandy 1000-SX, 486, P2-300, Dell Pentium 4). My previous printer was an Epson MX-80, which cost 500.00 in tax-free New Hampshire in 1983. It was hooked to the first 4 computers (maybe even the P2). I got rid of it because one of the tractor feed covers broke, but it was still working when I sent it off to someone. They don't make them like that anymore.

So, I'm in the market for a new one. I'm considering an all in 1, and giving my scanner to my MIL. Her scanner doesn't work windows XP (we gave her a new computer recently). Suggestions - I prefer Epson and HP as far as brands go. I don't print a lot, so I don't care if the cartridges are expensive.

Oddly enough my husbands printer also died this week. He had an Epson 860, but killed it by printing a lot from it. He liked it because cartridges were so cheap (under 5.00). So we have an Epson C-86 waiting to be installed.

Comments

[datagoddess.livejournal.com]

Yup. If the answering machine answers, it still listens and will take the call if it's a fax machine.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

One more question - how many pages per ink cartridge and how much do they run? My husband's epson has cheap ink, but he prints a lot, so he uses a lot of cartridges. I think HP's (especially office class) have larger cartridges so get more pages per cartridge.