While I'm on a roll, I thought I'd complete the dead hardware trifecta, and whine about my dead inkjet printer. My Epson 1520 died in the stupidest possible way. The printer mechanism works fine, but the safety interlock is broken. The interlock is designed to shut down the printer when you open the lid, so you don't injure your fingers by sticking them into the mechanism while it's printing. Every time I turn on the printer and it complains the lid is open, and refuses to print.
I suppose I could disassemble the printer and bypass the interlock, but I think I'll just toss it in the trash. The 1520 is a wonderful printer, it's the last 11x17 CMYK printer Epson made, so it's perfect for prepress proofs. The new generation of 6 and 8 color printers are way too good for prepress proofs, they don't produce realistic CMYK proofs, they're too saturated and bright.
But there is no sense in beating a dead horse. Epson no longer makes drivers for this printer, you have to use CUPS, which is included free in MacOS X, but it isn't very color accurate. Time to send the old beast to the graveyard.
Fortunately my ancient HP Laserjet 5MP is still going strong. I don't even remember when I bought that printer, I think it dates back to the 1980s.
I suppose I could disassemble the printer and bypass the interlock, but I think I'll just toss it in the trash. The 1520 is a wonderful printer, it's the last 11x17 CMYK printer Epson made, so it's perfect for prepress proofs. The new generation of 6 and 8 color printers are way too good for prepress proofs, they don't produce realistic CMYK proofs, they're too saturated and bright.
But there is no sense in beating a dead horse. Epson no longer makes drivers for this printer, you have to use CUPS, which is included free in MacOS X, but it isn't very color accurate. Time to send the old beast to the graveyard.
Fortunately my ancient HP Laserjet 5MP is still going strong. I don't even remember when I bought that printer, I think it dates back to the 1980s.
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