That's an interesting concept. Sounds kind of slow, though.

The ones I'm referring to are more appropriately called spirit duplicators. They had a relatively fast copy-per-minute, provided you turned the crank fast enough (although not too fast as you would spray alcohol everywhere and yield very mediocre results). They consisted of a drum onto which the "stencil" (which wasn't really a stencil) was placed. It rotated and through a system of wicks, the sheets of paper would be pre wetted in alcohol and pressed against the drum, making a 'stamp' of the original. They were messy, but not like the original mimeograph, which had thick molasses-like ink.

The ones I'm referring to are more appropriately called spirit duplicators. They had a relatively fast copy-per-minute, provided you turned the crank fast enough (although not too fast as you would spray alcohol everywhere and yield very mediocre results). They consisted of a drum onto which the "stencil" (which wasn't really a stencil) was placed. It rotated and through a system of wicks, the sheets of paper would be pre wetted in alcohol and pressed against the drum, making a 'stamp' of the original. They were messy, but not like the original mimeograph, which had thick molasses-like ink.

Yes, we had these at school, they were great fun. The copies came out in purple 

Purple ink was the most popular as it was the formula that gave the best contrast with the least parasitic staining. The masters (which were commonly called stencils) were also available in a myriad of colours, notably black, red, blue, green, yellow. Most schools only kept a stock of purple, though. The ink was in a carbon paper-style sheet that was placed "backwards" behind the master sheet. When you wrote, the pressure of your pen made a mirror image on the reverse of the master. The mixture of wax and ink was then pressed on the pre wetted paper (with alcohol) and dissolved a tiny bit of ink where it was present on the master, and did nothing (or was supposed to do nothing) were there wasn't an impression (so no ink on the master). It was, in essence, a sort of self inking "rubber stamp" the size of a sheet of paper (A4, Letter, Legal, etc). Very cool, simple process that worked even in power outages if you had a nonelectric machine.

Blank master sheets are still manufactured, oddly enough. They have found a new use : tattoo parlours. The tattoo artists use them to make a sketch of the artwork. When the time comes, they wet the skin of the client with alcohol and press the master firmly, which makes a copy of the drawing to trace with the tattoo making equipment.

Now back to the subject : spirit duplicators had no computerised parts so no chip to tell you it had run its course and needed to be replaced even if it was still good... The only parts that needed regular replacing were the wick and a couple of rubber rollers aside from the consumables of alcohol and paper.

That's an interesting concept. Sounds kind of slow, though.

Yeah it was neither fast nor high volume, but could work on a plain document.  Think it may have been an early inexpensive home office type of machine.  Wish I could find more information about it.

So not long after I mention that old machine, I walk into a thrift shop and find one.  Don't know if it's the same model (that was 25 years ago!) but it's the same type.  The heart of the machine is a pair of 200 watt Westinghouse eye saving "T" bulbs!

Now to see if I can find the paper for it.  Turns out the final copy was on special paper, not plain paper.

So not long after I mention that old machine, I walk into a thrift shop and find one.  Don't know if it's the same model (that was 25 years ago!) but it's the same type.  The heart of the machine is a pair of 200 watt Westinghouse eye saving "T" bulbs!

Now to see if I can find the paper for it.  Turns out the final copy was on special paper, not plain paper.

First fax machine I ever had used special paper, it was a Xerox Telecopier 400, it worked by feeding the original onto a roller and it sucked it in and scanned it VERY slowly, I think it took about 4 minutes to send a single sheet  

Ok most Samsungs you can reflash the firmware so they don't care what you do, toner, fuser, drum, you actually have to tape over the smart chip contacts, and the cheaper ones you can actually print until they are empty, it just warns you and beeps every now and then...

Hmmmm, I wonder if it would work with The Beast 

It annoys me intensely that to buy a new set of toner cartridges for quite a reasonably sized business printer costs as much if not more than replacing the entire machine 

It annoys me intensely that to buy a new set of toner cartridges for quite a reasonably sized business printer costs as much if not more than replacing the entire machine 

Not only the financial side of it, but also the environmental impact. The machine works perfectly but "we'll replace it because it means a new, more modern one". I'm also very annoyed by this marketing ploy...

Not only the financial side of it, but also the environmental impact. The machine works perfectly but "we'll replace it because it means a new, more modern one". I'm also very annoyed by this marketing ploy...

Otherwise known as 'Planned Obsolesence' 

Yes, planned obsolescence. I'm suffering the effects of that on my iPod touch at the moment. Not sure what to do to replace it, maybe an iPhone (but that is expensive and would probably result in a monthly bill).

OK, I'm going off topic here.

Another annoyance is the reduction of the ink volume in inkjet cartridges... The first ones I had were the Canon BC-01 and had 28 mL of ink (I think. It was generous, though). It was for an old Apple StyleWriter II. Some new ones have much less ink than that.

The ones I'm referring to are more appropriately called spirit duplicators. They had a relatively fast copy-per-minute, provided you turned the crank fast enough (although not too fast as you would spray alcohol everywhere and yield very mediocre results). They consisted of a drum onto which the "stencil" (which wasn't really a stencil) was placed. It rotated and through a system of wicks, the sheets of paper would be pre wetted in alcohol and pressed against the drum, making a 'stamp' of the original. They were messy, but not like the original mimeograph, which had thick molasses-like ink.

We had one at school that our maths teacher used when he was setting problems for the whole class to solve.

I have a colour laser jet printer HP model CP1215 , its colour toners are getting low but its still working fine. I may refill them or just get a store to do it because it'll cause me like $400 for new cartridges at staples

I have a colour laser jet printer HP model CP1215 , its colour toners are getting low but its still working fine. I may refill them or just get a store to do it because it'll cause me like $400 for new cartridges at staples

We don't have Staples in this country any more as they went out of business.  

EDIT:
We only have Staples online shopping, but for the majority of what we buy I like to see it in person before parting with my money.

We don't have Staples in this country any more as they went out of business. 

We have a Samsung CLX-6260FW, otherwise known as 'The Beast' - original manufacturer cartridges are expensive, we get re-manufactured ones from a company we found on the web, they use original cartridges and refill them, it costs about £150 or so for a full set of extended life cartridges, which last well over a year at the rate we use the printer. The company guarantee them to the extent that if one of their cartridges ruins your printer, they will replace it, which is good enough for me..!

Speaking of planned obsolescence, stay FAR, FAR away from printers that have a 'cleaning' function, especially inkjets. These will randomly start cleaning themselves at anytime , especially after powering on. During the cleaning process they will use some ink to clean the print head nozzle and the ink then gets dumped into large block with sponge inside, designed to last the 'expected' life of the pinter, when the sponge is full and starts to leak, printers EOL. I once had a brother copier, fax and printer- scanner combo machine and it would eat through ink fast. I gave up and started putting food colour in it or salvaged ink until it broke.

Also had an epson inkjet printer given to me, when i tried to refill its cartridges, they still said they were empty so must have had an eprom chip in them. This is like those Dell laptop batteries that just stop being detected and die after a certain amount of cycles, even though it worked perfect the day before. It has an eprom chip which locks out the cells. Replacing the cells does not fix the battery

HP inkjets.... I used to refill those and when I would take the cap off the cartridge, the 3 sections for the colours were not even fully utilized! In each colour section, the ink occupied only a bit more than half the space, the rest was an empty unused pit divided by plastic. There was so much unused space in there by design so the unit runs out faster.

Lexmarks, now those were fun, I could fill them up no problem and the spaces inside for each colour were fully occupied.


Today it seems that manufacturers have caught on about the ink scam, so now they sell 'tank' printers, where you pay big bucks for the printers but not so much for the ink bottles to refill the tanks. But im sure theres still little tricks involved to make you spend money