usb printing

[Kenneth Brody]

Quoting Fairlight (Sun, 11 Sep 2005 12:09:21 -0400):

> The honourable and venerable Kenneth Brody spoke thus:
> > Many Lexmark printers are too dumb to print anything but pictures,
> > using a proprietary printer language which is kept as a trade secret
> > by Lexmark, so that no one but them can write a driver.  They can't
> > even print the letter "A".  You need to generate a picture which has
> > an image of the letter "A" in it, and then print that picture.  The
> > same is true for many so-called "printers" nowadays.  (Hint -- if
> > you can buy it free ater rebate, just remember that you get what you
> > pay for.)
>
> I think they call that "revenue security".  The ironic thing being that
> they don't even make money on the hardware--the profit's all in the
> expendables like paper and ink.

As I understand it, Lexmark has actually sued third-party manufacturers
that reverse-engineered the chips built into the ink cartridges.  (How
ironic is it that the ink cartridges have more brains than the printer?)
I don't know the outcome of those suits.

Hold on...

    http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Oct/gee20041028027613.htm

Lexmark lost.

    [Last October's] federal appeals court overturning of an injunction
    that stopped sales of a third-party printer ink cartridge refill and
    associated chip technology was a blow to Lexmark's printer supplies
    sales strategy.

Of course, Lexmark isn't the only printer manufacturer to try such
tactics.

[...]

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