OT: Printing costs, and a surprising find

[Kenneth Brody]

On 3/28/2014 4:49 PM, Bill Campbell wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 28, 2014, Richard Kreiss wrote:
>> One quick comment- I seem to recall an unnamed software company who tried
>> this type of scheme and lost in court.
>
> I stopped using/recommending LexMark printers when they played
> silly-buggers with toner cartridges.

Some years ago, we bought several HP inkjet cartridges on sale.  Since we 
didn't print much color, the last one sat on the shelf for many months, 
probably more than a year or two.  When we finally got to open it, it turned 
out that there was a date printed on the box, which was, in fact, a "this 
cartridge will fail to function after this date".  Nothing on the packaging 
said so, and nothing was ever implied that it would cease to function.

So, this brand new, fresh out of the package ink cartridge was an expensive 
paperweight.  (And not a very good paperweight at that.)  The only 
indication of the problem was the small LCD display on the printer saying 
something like "cyan cartridge expired".

Fortunately, being the geeks that we are, and knowing that the printer had 
no concept of the current date, determined that the printer got the current 
date from a PJL header sent with the printer job.  A quick patch of the 
printer driver to change the string, and a power-cycle of the printer, and 
we were back in business.  (No PJL date header == no knowledge of the date.)

-- 
Kenneth Brody