Refound Conquest: StyleWriter II

[Scott Baret]

Last night, I cleaned out a closet I have not emptied entirely in many years. In the very back of the closet was a StyleWriter II, which I had forgotten about entirely (in fact, I was under the belief I had taken it to the recycler). I do know I acquired it in January 2007 from one of my best friends, who gave it to me alongside an LC.

I haven't tested it yet. To my knowledge it simply needed ink the last time it was powered on, which would have been almost four years ago. The case could use a little bit of a cleaning but that's not a problem.

I forgot how tiny the SWII is and am going to keep it around for that reason. I'm not a big inkjet guy (currently have none set up for the six computers I am using at the moment) but am willing to give this one a try provided I can find inexpensive ink for it.

 

[noidentity]

Good luck on that. I've sworn off inkjets (gave away several StyleWriters a few months ago).

 

[Concorde1993]

Colour laser printing all the way!

Hopefully your SW II works, unlike both of my SW 2200s, which neither can load a single sheet of paper anymore.

 

[Scott Baret]

The cost factor is precisely why I don't normally use inkjets. Very interesting chart, noidentity--should pass that along to all the people I know who think laser printing is too expensive. Mostly I want to get this printer up and running so I can dock my 180c in a different part of my setup, away from the network using the LW 4/600 PS, to print a quick page or two if I have it out and about (which I do with the 180c from time to time). I'm also looking for a restoration project of some sort for the coming weeks.

I've printed to lasers almost exclusively for over five years. I only needed to replace my toner cartridge twice to get through 5+ years of college classes (which included student teaching, a psych minor, research, and authorship of plenty of study guides, some of which were very long). I use an HP LJ 1022 and the LW 4/600 PS as my two primary printers. The only other printer I have set up at the moment is an ImageBanger, which happens to be my only color printer in service at the moment. If I need a photo printed, I just go to Ritz--most of the time I just e-mail my photos; my photo printer has sat unused for almost five years (which is when the original, costly ink ran out).

 

[LC_575]

For many years, I had to use an HP OfficeJet 700, one of those print/scan/copy/fax printers that do everything good but not great. The 700 was an exception - did everything terrible. Paper jams were seemingly daily, printing was slow, quality was awful, realignment of the cartridges was always needed, scanning was okay, faxing didn't always work, copying was annoying to do, and finally, it was LOUD.

What's worth mentioning was the cost of the carts, HP #29 and #49. I recall prices of $54.99 for color (49), and $34.99 for black (29). It was ridiculous, especially since at the time (1998) the 700 was a $250 dollar printer, so it didn't even conform to the "razors and blades" printers model. We (my family) grew to hate HP, until an epiphany came in the form of an HP Officejet 6100, a fantastic printer. We got it from my dad's workplace, where it was simply going to be thrown out. Black (HP 56) was $19.99, and color (HP 57) was $29.99. Such prices! But nowadays I've noticed that the costs of those aforementioned cartridges have been approaching the price points of 29 and 49. I get away with it by buying blacks in sets of two, and colors in a "photo printing" package, which includes HP 58, their photo cart, and a ream of 4x6 glossy paper.

Meanwhile, i've invested $9.99 in my LaserJet 4L and don't see myself spending another dime until at least 2012. Lucky for me my friend gave me a USB/1284 converter, so my 4L's life will continue on well into the future!

 

[Concorde1993]

until an epiphany came in the form of an HP Officejet 6100, a fantastic printer.

Nope, gotta disagree with you there. My parents had a 6110 (still part of the 6100-series), and it was garbage (don't even get me started on the cost of those ink cartridges; you would waste half-a-tank printing out that stupid diagnostics page when initializing the cartridges). After a year, or so, the heads began to clog, it would take forever to scan an image, and the fax machine started to turn south three years into its service life. In October, the 6110 died (I noticed that the power indicator light was off even though it was plugged in), and there was a burning smell. To this day, we are not sure what killed it. Capacitor, perhaps? Who knows? What's even more bizarre is last month, my mom's Pavilion PC died abruptly when I disengaged it from sleep mode (the fan went on at full speed, and there was no image on the display). Upon running several diagnostics on the motherboard (i.e., removing the RAM, installing new RAM, removing the PRAM battery, checking for leaks/cracks, trying it on another tower w. a different HD, etc.), and ultimately bringing it to Staples, we determined that it had outlived it's useful life. Cause? Who the hell knows?

I tried convincing my parents to go back to Apple (they were using the same Mac SE I now have stored in my room; talk about dependability), but they decided to stick with Windows as they preferred it better over the Mac OS. So now they have an Officejet Pro 8500 (not bad, btw; great for scanning images, and I love the fact that it's capable of printing double-sided sheets, although my Brother HL-3070CW colour laser printer is absolutely fantastic), and another Pavilion running Win 7 with an i3 processor.

Bottom line- HP= "horrible products."

 

[LC_575]

I always forget that I have a 6110, not a 6100. Anyways for me it's a very good printer, except for that one time it refused to accept some refurbed carts. I'm not saying that HP is a good company - my HP Elite Keyboard's height adjusters - both of them - broke after less than a year of use. Thy had to be fixed with Krazy glue, a fix that usually fails after a few months. And this is my second $L. My first one was a total piece of crap, and so's this one, thanks to sticking solenoids. But I fixed that problem, so it's a decent laser printer now.

But hey, you think HP's bad? Try Lexmark inkjets. Or Dell printers in general:

Wednesday I was in the Palisades Center, NYC's out-of-town megamall. It don't particularly like it - it was designed with the aesthetics of a Power Mac 4400. So I go into Staples to buy my mom a pack of Sharpies - a good stocking stuffer for her. One item, head to the cashier. One cashier open, okay, only one other person on line. She's buying a Dell cartridge.

So she's up next, and she produces from her handbag an opened Dell cart, same model. I groan. I know where this is going, and it's the third time that day. In Macy's the people in front of me attempted to return giftware without receipt. In Williams-Sonoma there was an argument over a sale - apparently the item in question was not on sale, thanks to some fine print. And in Target I got a woman who couldn't get her credit card to work.

She wants to return the cart. Her problem: Her printer declares that the brand-new cart is empty. She has a receipt and wants not money but an exchange. Her cart is defective.

Now that's entirely possible. Knowing Dell, this is one of those printers that "scans" the cart for a specific chip, which indicates that the cart is an authentic Dell product. And said chip is defective. The cashier argues that her printer is at fault (of course), because the cart is clearly full of ink. All further demands are responded to with "call Dell support." I expected the woman to demand a manager now, but thankfully it didn't go that far.

If only all printers would just blindly accept carts instead of implementing these authenticator chips just so we can have an ink level display cluttering my desktop. What an excuse.

 

[Concorde1993]

But hey, you think HP's bad? Try Lexmark inkjets. Or Dell printers in general:

Not sure about the Lexmark inkjets, as I have never owned one, but their monochrome laser printers are very durable (there are a whole bunch networked in specific business/computer classrooms, in addition to the library/office at my high school). Never had a problem with them & I can print whatever I want off of my MBP when I have it networked to the server; it's great to have teachers that just don't care about the little things.

Dell...we all know about the "quality" of their products. Although, in regards to HP, the best printers they ever released were the Laserjet III, 4000 & DeskWriter 3.1. Before my parents joined the "dark side" of computing, they had a DW 3.1 as their main printer for the SE. Very good print quality, and efficient on ink (as I recall, we got about 150 pages on one ink cartridge, and we used to refill our cartridges with a syringe kit back in the 90s/early 2000s). Sadly, the paper feeder began malfunctioning in 2001-02 (it would not properly load the sheet into the feeder, and the feeder would jam more frequently than usual)...around the time my parents were considering purchasing a more "modern" computer. It was thrown out in 2004 against my will (I was going to try & salvage it as I did not have another printer for the SE until my first real Mac conquest in 2009, when I purchased an ImageWriter II, which came with a Mac Plus, generic carrying case, software, HD, etc.). Fortunately, I managed to salvage the SE (they were going to throw it out), and I still use it. Actually, to tell the truth, that SE was my main traveling computer in April-May of 2010, when my '08 MBP began to turn south. When you talk about durability, there's no beating an SE (unless, perhaps, it's an SE/30).

 

[Scott Baret]

I actually was just thinking about the SE's reliability tonight and how it is miles better than the other compact Macs. The SE I was using in the classroom this past semester had never had any work done on it save for replacing a PRAM battery and never had any problems. (The first graders also liked it).

As far as Lexmark printers, I remember looking at their inkjets in 1998 when shopping for what ultimately wound up to be a DeskJet 722C. The printers received high scores for their output, but the build quality appeared to be poor. Most of the people I knew were using HPs or Epsons at the time, so I was unable to gather information as to the reliability of these printers. I was replacing a DeskJet Plus, one of HP's earliest inkjets (circa 1989), which had suffered the same paper feeding problems as most early DeskJets/DeskWriters. (I used to have to push the paper into the printer after the rollers gave out--of course, it was connected to a 486 DX2 running Windows 95, so it's not like I was going to actually do anything in the background while it was printing).

HP's old lasers were pretty much indestructible. I knew of a LaserJet III in service as late as 2006 and saw a LaserJet 5 in operation as recently as 2008. Both were being used on a regular basis. Another old favorite of mine is the 4050 (part of that amazing 4000 series). I think we, as a board, universally love the 4L. I can also speak highly for the 1022--it's given me five years of faithful service and in those five years has probably only jammed a grand total of six times.

StyleWriters are spotty in general. Tomorrow I'll be testing the SWII I found in the closet to make sure it still fires up. ImageWriters, on a whole, are pretty reliable, although I did have a power supply die in one of mine a few years back. (It was a third generation ImageWriter; I've found the first generation white models to be the most reliable overall).

 

[Concorde1993]

The SE I was using in the classroom this past semester had never had any work done on it save for replacing a PRAM battery and never had any problems.

Yep, just removed (not replaced) my SE's PRAM battery, which had been dead for 5 years back in August. Fortunately, it did not leak, and the internal components were relatively clean, considering the case had not been opened when it was purchased used in 1993-94.

(The first graders also liked it).

Yeah, so did the 30+ year old teachers who saw me using it in the library/classroom (except my English teacher; she had one in the early 90s, and hated it for being so slow. Women ;D ).

(I used to have to push the paper into the printer after the rollers gave out--of course, it was connected to a 486 DX2 running Windows 95, so it's not like I was going to actually do anything in the background while it was printing).

Yep, that's what my parents used to do after cursing it for 5-10 minutes. The SE would "beep," and show a dialog box stating that the printer was "out of paper." As annoying as it was, I actually miss those days, and that printer for that matter. Today's inkjets are inexpensive, but poorly constructed (what do you expect from China?), and the ink cartridges are highly overpriced (although the Canon cartridges are fairly reasonable. For my i560, which I sold earlier this year, I think it was $13 for black ink, and $17 for the colour cartridges. Basically, it was a vast improvement from my 2004-06 Epson C64, which was guzzling ink like crazy, and the cartridges were typically in the $30-$50 range, even more when the cartridges were purchased in a combined "trio pack," or whatever it was called back then).

In regards to the 4000, my old elementary school is still using theirs (after it became the replacement for the Apple LW 16/600 in 2002), although according to my youngest sister (who is in grade 6), there has been rumors about replacing it with a more modern Lexmark, or HP. It probably has to do with the fact that they recently upgraded their network with the newer iMacs, which replaced the eMacs.

 

[LC_575]

With regards to build quality, well, my 4L would have to be dropped of at least a freeway overpass in order to kill it. It's exceedingly well built, and yet, pretty simple to take apart for a laser. I also used to have a IIP+, my first laser printer. I regret throwing it out - it was a fine printer until it's cart failed, and I wasn't interested in investing in it. I recall it being built like a tank - seriously, it was heavy.

If you think about it, probably one of the reasons we like lasers so much it that they're primarily mechanical, often standards-compliant, machines that you can actually fix. In my 4L there's one main motor, a geartrain, scanner assembly, fuser assembly, power supply board, and finally the cart. Any one of these things can be removed and replaced in under 10 minutes. Inkjets are so much more proprietary, and have more moving parts that are likely to fail. And then they're built cheaply. Some HP inkjets I've seen are so lightweight that they actually, slowly, vibrate their way across a table as they print. Can you say "cheap?"

 

[Concorde1993]

If you think about it, probably one of the reasons we like lasers so much it that they're primarily mechanical, often standards-compliant, machines that you can actually fix.

I like them because the quality of the printout (especially text-only documents) is far more superior than the ordinary inkjet (even the higher-end models, like the Officejet Pro 8500). No jaggies, and the toner does not smudge.

I also take into account the cost of toner. Sure, it's $59 for a new black toner, and $80 something for colour toner (in my case, anyway), but for the cost, you end of getting 2 200 pages for all toners, maybe even more. And they can be refilled easily, which reduces cost slightly (although after my starter toners are complete, I will purchase new ones, as the starter toners are not designed to exceed over 1 000 pages).

Besides, a decent laser printer will have a lifespan of 25 000-40 000 pages on the original fuser/drum. Try printing 25 000 pages off of an inkjet.

 

[noidentity]

The biggest drawback with injkets is the wasted ink every time you turn them on/off, and drying between prints. If you don't print very often, it drives the cost per page way up, and you still get problems with clogged print heads. And let's not get into the printers refusing to print black & white just because the color ink is out. Never again.

 

[Concorde1993]

And let's not get into the printers refusing to print black & white just because the color ink is out. Never again.

I had that problem with my Epson C64. A colour cartridge would run out, and the printer would refuse to print a regular text document until a new replacement cartridge was installed. A very stupid feature, especially if you did not have an extra cartridge around. When I had my i560, it would warn me 20 pages beforehand that I was running low on ink, although I would open up the lid, and check the cartridges after a 100 pages, or so, as you could actually see the level of ink that remained in the cartridge. And the colours/text would not suddenly "fade away," as seen with other HP/Epson inkjets.

In regards to my Brother colour laser printer, the owner's manual states that the printer will refuse any print jobs if a toner is completely depleted, regardless if the document is in colour/grayscale. But I still have a ways to go before I require new toner cartridges.

 

[~Coxy]

I've had many LaserJet 5s over the last few years, and in my experience the anecdotal evidence of them being indestructable tanks is incorrect.

While they are undoubtedly well built, all of the plastics and rubber used in the construction is now aged 10+ years from when it was new. They will of course print fine, but the continued troubles with feeding/duplexing/page lifting/paper trays I had with mine forced me to give up on them, despite several rebuilds and repairs.

A bit of a shame, because I liked having the ability to print A3 and/or duplex at home on my own dime, but the SOAF (to use an old MLA term) was very low.