HP DeskWriter 550C

[Gil]

Havent posted much in the last couple years. Been busy and haven't been playing with old Mac stuff until just recently. Picked this one up on eBay from a seller thats actually only about 20 minutes away from me. Included all original documentation and disks. This particular printer has significant sentimental value to me - my elementary school had these in the classrooms along with Macintoshes of varying models (mainly LC575's, PM 5400's, and a few 9500's). So this was the printer I first discovered when I discovered my love for Macintosh. So glad to finally have one after all these years! It's in excellent condition except a piece of the paper tray broke off when I tried to put it in - I'll probably just gorilla-glue it back together. Very excited! This one appears to be one of the later ones. Not sure how long they produced this model but I believe it was introduced around '91? I know by 94/95 they had the 600 series out.

 

[olePigeon]

That was the second printer we ever had in my house.  The first was the Imagewriter II that came with our Apple //e.

 

[trag]

Nice find.  Back in the day, I always wanted a 540C and then a 550C but could never justify spending the, what ?, $300 - $400? at the time.   The reviews in the Mac mags for the affordable HP inkjets were very favorable.

 

[CC_333]

My first Printer that I actually got to work with anything was an HP DeskJet 572C (I no longer have it, sadly, as I believe it broke). It came as either a freebie or some other sort of special bundle deal with my first iMac, with which I could never get it to work. I finally got it to work, ironically, with my then-new PC a few years (2003-2005)

Technically, however, our first printer was an Epson Color Stylus... III? It came with our first computer ever, a generic Windows 95 PC. We unfortunately lost that PC while moving, but I still have this printer, and it's *never* been used, aside from being powered on about 8-10 years ago.

c

 

[flecom]

550c was the first color printer we had at the house

I can still distinctly remember the sounds it made...

 

[Hotdog Zanzibar]

I had one of those at work back in '95/'96. Loved it... worked great... until it didn't, which didn't take too long. Be extra careful of the "flaps" on either side of the paper tray that raise & lower during feeding. They can jam really easily. Can't imagine that old plastic will hold up too well if that happens.

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, I think those flaps on mine broke at some point (can't remember), and that was one of the reasons we eventually threw it out if I recall.

c

 

[EvilCapitalist]

I wonder if HP cheapened things out a bit going from the PC side to the Mac side.  My first printer was a DeskJet 500 where the rollers had gotten to the point that it didn't always feed paper automatically and you had to help it along while the family printer (at that point) was a DeskJet 520 which was bulletproof until the day it was retired because it didn't seem to like parallel to USB adapters.

They definitely made distinctive sounds.

EDIT

The DeskJet 550C sounds a little different than the 520, similar sounding paper mechanism though.