On 2024-03-27, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>> On 21/03/2024 8:03 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>> On 2024-03-03, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>> On 2/03/2024 9:00 am, keithr0 wrote:
>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HP used to be a great company turning out expensive but top quality
>>>>>> gear, now they are just a money grubbing mob taking the customer for
>>>>>> every cent that they can. This is just the latest swindle
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I bet that Hewlett and Packard are turning over in their graves with shame.
>>>>>
>>>>> **You'd think. I've HP (laser) printers since the late 1980s (My first
>>>>> was a LJ-IIIP). Then came some experimentation with other brands. Oki
>>>>> was nice, but try to locate suitable drivers for the damned thing. Then
>>>>> there was a disasterous foray into a Samsung laser
>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. It was cheap and print quality was decent.
>>>>> HOWEVER, a simple paper jam required a complete dismantling of the
>>>>> printer! It was an horrific design. I gave up a few years back and
>>>>> purchased another HP. I could not be happier. Toner is not cheap, but
>>>>> print quality, speed and overall versatility of the thing is just
>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>
>>>>> Oh and WRT to print cartridges, let's discuss my old Canon inkjet
>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. The ink dried out, so I figured I would just use
>>>>> it as a scanner. Nup. Damned thing will not allow such a thing to occur.
>>>>> You have to load it with (Canon only) inks (at huge expense) just so you
>>>>> can scan. Oh yeah, my dedicated Canon scanner wouldn't work with Windows
>>>>> 10, because they couldn't be bothered releasing drivers for it.
>>>>>
>>>>> My HP just quietly and quickly chugs away, doing what it has always done
>>>>> for the past 4 years. The odd paper jam (maybe one sheet in every three
>>>>> or four reams) is quickly and easily dealt with.
>>>>>
>>>>> I've learned my lesson. I'm sticking with HP. They just work.
>>>>>
>>>>> FWIW: My other printer is a cheap 'n cheerful Brother ($120.00 from
>>>>> Officeworks) mono laser. It is similarly well designed, VERY cheap to
>>>>> run (third party toners are easy and cheap to buy) and just keeps going.
>>>>> Print quality is not in the same league as the HP, but it is adequate
>>>>> for most purposes.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> These stories make me want to dig out my Epson LX400 Dot Matrix
>>>> printer and keep it working as a fallback.
>>>
>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>
>>
>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>
> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
> are well and truly gone.
>
>

My experience with Floppy Disks was generally good, they suddenly took
a turn for the worse in the late 90s/early 2000s when the
manufacturing quality just dropped off a cliff.

I wouldn't go back to using them, but I've just converted some VHS
home movies to DVD, and the old tapes, nearly 40 years are are all
still good, whereas burned DVDs? Would they last? A hard drive?

On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>
>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>
>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>> are well and truly gone.
>
> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>
> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>

Does the Zip drive still work? Mine suffered from the "click of
death", barely works, half the disks are gone. CD Rom drives could
die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
defect.

Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.

Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
years.

On 1/4/2024 8:14 pm, Borax Man wrote:
> On 2024-03-27, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On 21/03/2024 8:03 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-03-03, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/03/2024 9:00 am, keithr0 wrote:
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> HP used to be a great company turning out expensive but top quality
>>>>>>> gear, now they are just a money grubbing mob taking the customer for
>>>>>>> every cent that they can. This is just the latest swindle
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I bet that Hewlett and Packard are turning over in their graves with shame.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> **You'd think. I've HP (laser) printers since the late 1980s (My first
>>>>>> was a LJ-IIIP). Then came some experimentation with other brands. Oki
>>>>>> was nice, but try to locate suitable drivers for the damned thing. Then
>>>>>> there was a disasterous foray into a Samsung laser
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. It was cheap and print quality was decent.
>>>>>> HOWEVER, a simple paper jam required a complete dismantling of the
>>>>>> printer! It was an horrific design. I gave up a few years back and
>>>>>> purchased another HP. I could not be happier. Toner is not cheap, but
>>>>>> print quality, speed and overall versatility of the thing is just
>>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oh and WRT to print cartridges, let's discuss my old Canon inkjet
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. The ink dried out, so I figured I would just use
>>>>>> it as a scanner. Nup. Damned thing will not allow such a thing to occur.
>>>>>> You have to load it with (Canon only) inks (at huge expense) just so you
>>>>>> can scan. Oh yeah, my dedicated Canon scanner wouldn't work with Windows
>>>>>> 10, because they couldn't be bothered releasing drivers for it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My HP just quietly and quickly chugs away, doing what it has always done
>>>>>> for the past 4 years. The odd paper jam (maybe one sheet in every three
>>>>>> or four reams) is quickly and easily dealt with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've learned my lesson. I'm sticking with HP. They just work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> FWIW: My other printer is a cheap 'n cheerful Brother ($120.00 from
>>>>>> Officeworks) mono laser. It is similarly well designed, VERY cheap to
>>>>>> run (third party toners are easy and cheap to buy) and just keeps going.
>>>>>> Print quality is not in the same league as the HP, but it is adequate
>>>>>> for most purposes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> These stories make me want to dig out my Epson LX400 Dot Matrix
>>>>> printer and keep it working as a fallback.
>>>>
>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>
>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>> are well and truly gone.
>>
>>
>
> My experience with Floppy Disks was generally good, they suddenly took

I had both good and bad experiences with floppy disks, ditto with
burnable CDs/DVDs. My first CD reader was a 2.2 times reader with caddies.

> a turn for the worse in the late 90s/early 2000s when the
> manufacturing quality just dropped off a cliff.

Yes, you needed to be brand conscious back then, some were utter crap.
>
> I wouldn't go back to using them, but I've just converted some VHS
> home movies to DVD, and the old tapes, nearly 40 years are are all
> still good, whereas burned DVDs? Would they last? A hard drive?

Burned DVDs will definitely not last given the medium they use. Hard
drives in the 90s had a 5 year life span (I had a part time job in the
hard drive industry back then) assuming continuous use. I saw one brand
of HDD achieve a 95% failure rate. The only reason it didn't get 100% FR
was that the last few boses of drives weren't sold. I suppose these days
you would need to look at MTBF stats to get some idea of longevity.

--
Xeno

Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>
>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>
>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>>> are well and truly gone.
>>
>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>
>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>
>
> Does the Zip drive still work? Mine suffered from the "click of
> death", barely works, half the disks are gone. CD Rom drives could
> die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
> a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
> defect.
>
> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
> with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>
> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
> years.

Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.

--
Xeno

Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On Mon, 01 Apr 2024 20:14:48 +1100, Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:

> On 2024-03-27, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On 21/03/2024 8:03 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-03-03, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/03/2024 9:00 am, keithr0 wrote:
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> HP used to be a great company turning out expensive but top quality
>>>>>>> gear, now they are just a money grubbing mob taking the customer
>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>> every cent that they can. This is just the latest swindle
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I bet that Hewlett and Packard are turning over in their graves
>>>>>>> with shame.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> **You'd think. I've HP (laser) printers since the late 1980s (My
>>>>>> first
>>>>>> was a LJ-IIIP). Then came some experimentation with other brands.
>>>>>> Oki
>>>>>> was nice, but try to locate suitable drivers for the damned thing.
>>>>>> Then
>>>>>> there was a disasterous foray into a Samsung laser
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. It was cheap and print quality was decent.
>>>>>> HOWEVER, a simple paper jam required a complete dismantling of the
>>>>>> printer! It was an horrific design. I gave up a few years back and
>>>>>> purchased another HP. I could not be happier. Toner is not cheap,
>>>>>> but
>>>>>> print quality, speed and overall versatility of the thing is just
>>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oh and WRT to print cartridges, let's discuss my old Canon inkjet
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. The ink dried out, so I figured I would
>>>>>> just use
>>>>>> it as a scanner. Nup. Damned thing will not allow such a thing to
>>>>>> occur.
>>>>>> You have to load it with (Canon only) inks (at huge expense) just
>>>>>> so you
>>>>>> can scan. Oh yeah, my dedicated Canon scanner wouldn't work with
>>>>>> Windows
>>>>>> 10, because they couldn't be bothered releasing drivers for it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My HP just quietly and quickly chugs away, doing what it has always
>>>>>> done
>>>>>> for the past 4 years. The odd paper jam (maybe one sheet in every
>>>>>> three
>>>>>> or four reams) is quickly and easily dealt with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've learned my lesson. I'm sticking with HP. They just work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> FWIW: My other printer is a cheap 'n cheerful Brother ($120.00 from
>>>>>> Officeworks) mono laser. It is similarly well designed, VERY cheap
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> run (third party toners are easy and cheap to buy) and just keeps
>>>>>> going.
>>>>>> Print quality is not in the same league as the HP, but it is
>>>>>> adequate
>>>>>> for most purposes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> These stories make me want to dig out my Epson LX400 Dot Matrix
>>>>> printer and keep it working as a fallback.
>>>>
>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24
>>>> pin
>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them
>>>> all
>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each!
>>>> Fabulous
>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who
>>>> bought
>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to
>>>> stop
>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>
>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>> are well and truly gone.
>>
>>
>
> My experience with Floppy Disks was generally good, they suddenly took
> a turn for the worse in the late 90s/early 2000s when the
> manufacturing quality just dropped off a cliff.
>
> I wouldn't go back to using them, but I've just converted some VHS
> home movies to DVD, and the old tapes, nearly 40 years are are all
> still good, whereas burned DVDs? Would they last?

Mine have and I don't bother to store them properly at all.

> A hard drive?

Only loat the one 80MB Miniscribe and I have dozens of hard drives
that I kept the recorded free to air progs on and never could be
bothered to clean up given hard drives became so cheap.

On Tue, 02 Apr 2024 00:15:09 +1100, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:

> On 1/4/2024 8:14 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>> On 2024-03-27, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>> On 21/03/2024 8:03 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>>> On 2024-03-03, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2/03/2024 9:00 am, keithr0 wrote:
>>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> HP used to be a great company turning out expensive but top
>>>>>>>> quality
>>>>>>>> gear, now they are just a money grubbing mob taking the customer
>>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>>> every cent that they can. This is just the latest swindle
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I bet that Hewlett and Packard are turning over in their graves
>>>>>>>> with shame.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **You'd think. I've HP (laser) printers since the late 1980s (My
>>>>>>> first
>>>>>>> was a LJ-IIIP). Then came some experimentation with other brands.
>>>>>>> Oki
>>>>>>> was nice, but try to locate suitable drivers for the damned thing.
>>>>>>> Then
>>>>>>> there was a disasterous foray into a Samsung laser
>>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. It was cheap and print quality was decent.
>>>>>>> HOWEVER, a simple paper jam required a complete dismantling of the
>>>>>>> printer! It was an horrific design. I gave up a few years back and
>>>>>>> purchased another HP. I could not be happier. Toner is not cheap,
>>>>>>> but
>>>>>>> print quality, speed and overall versatility of the thing is just
>>>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Oh and WRT to print cartridges, let's discuss my old Canon inkjet
>>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. The ink dried out, so I figured I would
>>>>>>> just use
>>>>>>> it as a scanner. Nup. Damned thing will not allow such a thing to
>>>>>>> occur.
>>>>>>> You have to load it with (Canon only) inks (at huge expense) just
>>>>>>> so you
>>>>>>> can scan. Oh yeah, my dedicated Canon scanner wouldn't work with
>>>>>>> Windows
>>>>>>> 10, because they couldn't be bothered releasing drivers for it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My HP just quietly and quickly chugs away, doing what it has
>>>>>>> always done
>>>>>>> for the past 4 years. The odd paper jam (maybe one sheet in every
>>>>>>> three
>>>>>>> or four reams) is quickly and easily dealt with.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I've learned my lesson. I'm sticking with HP. They just work.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> FWIW: My other printer is a cheap 'n cheerful Brother ($120.00 from
>>>>>>> Officeworks) mono laser. It is similarly well designed, VERY cheap
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> run (third party toners are easy and cheap to buy) and just keeps
>>>>>>> going.
>>>>>>> Print quality is not in the same league as the HP, but it is
>>>>>>> adequate
>>>>>>> for most purposes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> These stories make me want to dig out my Epson LX400 Dot Matrix
>>>>>> printer and keep it working as a fallback.
>>>>>
>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24
>>>>> pin
>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them
>>>>> all
>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each!
>>>>> Fabulous
>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who
>>>>> bought
>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to
>>>>> stop
>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms
>>>>> really
>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>
>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out
>>> of
>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those
>>> days
>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>
>>>
>> My experience with Floppy Disks was generally good, they suddenly took
>
> I had both good and bad experiences with floppy disks, ditto with
> burnable CDs/DVDs. My first CD reader was a 2.2 times reader with
> caddies.
>
>> a turn for the worse in the late 90s/early 2000s when the
>> manufacturing quality just dropped off a cliff.
>
> Yes, you needed to be brand conscious back then, some were utter crap.
>> I wouldn't go back to using them, but I've just converted some VHS
>> home movies to DVD, and the old tapes, nearly 40 years are are all
>> still good, whereas burned DVDs? Would they last? A hard drive?

> Burned DVDs will definitely not last given the medium they use.

Wrong, mine have.

> Hard drives in the 90s had a 5 year life span

BULLSHIT. I only ever lost the one 80MB Miniscribe

> (I had a part time job in the hard drive industry back then)

But have no way of knowing what the failure rate in the field was.

> assuming continuous use.

Mine were all continuous use. I only ever turn my
systems off when going away for weeks, never for
a few days.

> I saw one brand of HDD achieve a 95% failure rate. The only reason it
> didn't get 100% FR was that the last few boses of drives weren't sold. I
> suppose these days you would need to look at MTBF stats to get some idea
> of longevity.

MTBFdoes nothing of the sort.

Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>>> are well and truly gone.
>>
>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>
>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>
>
> Does the Zip drive still work?

Yes, it's an internal IDE-connected one.

> Mine suffered from the "click of death", barely works, half the
> disks are gone.

I had "click of death" problems with USB Zip drives. It seems like
the earlier IDE and Parallel Port drives were more reliable to me.

> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
> with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.

Yes I found 1.4MB floppies tended to become flaky with lots of big
writes, although for read-only use they seem to last as well as
other floppies.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On 2024-04-01, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
> Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>
>>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>>
>>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>>
>>
>> Does the Zip drive still work?
>
> Yes, it's an internal IDE-connected one.
>
>> Mine suffered from the "click of death", barely works, half the
>> disks are gone.
>
> I had "click of death" problems with USB Zip drives. It seems like
> the earlier IDE and Parallel Port drives were more reliable to me.
>

Mine is the Parallel Port option. In retrospect I should have just
waited a little longer until I got a CD-Burner. I did use it to
transfer files between home and work, and on occasion with friends but
it was only a year or so later when I transferred my Zip disk archive
to a few CD's. Those disks cost about $12-$14 AUD each back around
2000.

It worked well for a few years, but recently when I've played with it,
its been flaky.

>> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
>> with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
>> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
>> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>
> Yes I found 1.4MB floppies tended to become flaky with lots of big
> writes, although for read-only use they seem to last as well as
> other floppies.
>

I've got some floppies, 720K formatted as 1.44M that my uncle put
files on back in the early 90s, and they still work. He had an
Amstrad PC2386, and that floppy drive would format a 720K to 1.44M
without the need to punch the hole in it. I don't know why I've still
got them.

On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>>
>>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>>
>>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>
>>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>>
>>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>>
>>
>> Does the Zip drive still work? Mine suffered from the "click of
>> death", barely works, half the disks are gone. CD Rom drives could
>> die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
>> a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
>> defect.
>>
>> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
>> with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
>> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
>> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>>
>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>> years.
>
> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>

Any lube you recommend? Grease or will sewing machine oil work?

Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>
>>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>>> years.
>>
>> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
>> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>>
>
> Any lube you recommend? Grease or will sewing machine oil work?

I've used 3-in-1 oil for that and it seems to do the job, but it's
only a guess.

Of course the ribbon will probably be dried up too, but you'll
probably still see something on the paper. They can be re-inked
with oil-based ink, or you can still buy new ones for some models.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On 2/4/2024 5:10 pm, Borax Man wrote:
> On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>>>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>>>
>>>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>>>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>>>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>>>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>>
>>>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>>>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>>>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>>>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>>>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>>>
>>>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Does the Zip drive still work? Mine suffered from the "click of
>>> death", barely works, half the disks are gone. CD Rom drives could
>>> die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
>>> a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
>>> defect.
>>>
>>> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
>>> with some disks. Still surprisingly working. I think the low density
>>> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
>>> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>>>
>>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>>> years.
>>
>> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
>> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>>
>
> Any lube you recommend? Grease or will sewing machine oil work?

Sewing machine oil should be adequate. Moisten a lint free cloth with it
and spread it from cloth to guide rails.

--
Xeno

Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 02/04/2024 21:18, Xeno wrote:
> On 2/4/2024 5:10 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>> On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>>>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?)
>>>>>>>> 24 pin
>>>>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold
>>>>>>>> them all
>>>>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each!
>>>>>>>> Fabulous
>>>>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who
>>>>>>>> bought
>>>>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused
>>>>>>>> to stop
>>>>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms
>>>>>>>> really
>>>>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech.  Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>>>>>> drives, things that are noisy.  There is a certain level of
>>>>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines
>>>>>>> work, the
>>>>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you
>>>>>> breathed too
>>>>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting
>>>>>> out of
>>>>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>>>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad
>>>>>> those days
>>>>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>>>
>>>>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>>>>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>>>>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>>>>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>>>>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>>>>
>>>>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Does the Zip drive still work?  Mine suffered from the "click of
>>>> death", barely works, half the disks are gone.  CD Rom drives could
>>>> die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
>>>> a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
>>>> defect.
>>>>
>>>> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
>>>> with some disks.  Still surprisingly working.  I think the low density
>>>> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
>>>> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>>>>
>>>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>>>> years.
>>>
>>> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
>>> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>>>
>>
>> Any lube you recommend?  Grease or will sewing machine oil work?
>
> Sewing machine oil should be adequate. Moisten a lint free cloth with it
> and spread it from cloth to guide rails.
>

Make sure you don't use the sewing machine oil with the extra glugginess
additive - I can never remember what is is, but do avoid it.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

On 2/4/2024 10:37 pm, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:
> On 02/04/2024 21:18, Xeno wrote:
>> On 2/4/2024 5:10 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-03-27, Computer Nerd Kev <not@telling.you.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>> Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally
>>>>>>>>> (sp?) 24 pin
>>>>>>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold
>>>>>>>>> them all
>>>>>>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each!
>>>>>>>>> Fabulous
>>>>>>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate
>>>>>>>>> who bought
>>>>>>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It
>>>>>>>>> refused to stop
>>>>>>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms
>>>>>>>>> really
>>>>>>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech.  Dot Matrix printers,
>>>>>>>> floppy
>>>>>>>> drives, things that are noisy.  There is a certain level of
>>>>>>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines
>>>>>>>> work, the
>>>>>>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you
>>>>>>> breathed too
>>>>>>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting
>>>>>>> out of
>>>>>>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>>>>>>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad
>>>>>>> those days
>>>>>>> are well and truly gone.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Still well and truely alive where I'm sitting, next to a dot-matrix
>>>>>> printer, 3.5" floppy drive, Zip drive, CD ROM drive (I've rarely
>>>>>> had trouble with these being flaky, it's the discs that are the
>>>>>> problem), and two ~2GB IDE HDDs. All in/for the Pentium I PC that
>>>>>> I'm posting this from quite comfortably.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Not made by HP or IBM though.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does the Zip drive still work?  Mine suffered from the "click of
>>>>> death", barely works, half the disks are gone.  CD Rom drives could
>>>>> die I found, but the TDK and Verbatim CDs have lasted well, aside from
>>>>> a few from a particular which went bad, presumably a manufacturing
>>>>> defect.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ive still got a few 1.2M 5.25 inch drives as well, three working ones
>>>>> with some disks.  Still surprisingly working.  I think the low density
>>>>> of information on the 1.2M disks made them quite a big more reliable
>>>>> than the 1.44M where they tried to fit more data into a smaller area.
>>>>>
>>>>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>>>>> years.
>>>>
>>>> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
>>>> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Any lube you recommend?  Grease or will sewing machine oil work?
>>
>> Sewing machine oil should be adequate. Moisten a lint free cloth with
>> it and spread it from cloth to guide rails.
>>
>
> Make sure you don't use the sewing machine oil with the extra glugginess
> additive - I can never remember what is is, but do avoid it.
>
>     Cheers,
>         Gary    B-)

Yes, glugginess to be avoided. I have used CRC 5.56 at times, found it
to work quite well. Just don't spray it around inside the printer - same
as machine oil - wet a rag with it and rub it onto the rails.
--
Xeno

Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 2/4/2024 6:06 pm, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Borax Man <rotflol2@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2024-04-01, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>> On 1/4/2024 8:18 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Will have to see if the dot matrix works, I haven't run it in about 15
>>>> years.
>>>
>>> Clean, then run a bit of thin lube on the head guide rails before you
>>> run it. They will be dusty and dry after all this time.
>>>
>>
>> Any lube you recommend? Grease or will sewing machine oil work?
>
> I've used 3-in-1 oil for that and it seems to do the job, but it's
> only a guess.

3-in-one oil is light machine oil but may come with some additives.

Light machine oil - like sewing machine oil - comes on a mineral base
with no additives. That way it leaves no varnish film on parts. The lack
of additives means that there are no additives to concern yourself about
that may deteriorate plastic components - and is why I say to apply a
film of oil to the runner guides with an oil moistened rag. That said,
you can get a sewing machine oil with a teflon additive. I would avoid
that one and anything with a silicone additive.

As an aside, don't use WD-40. It is primarily a water displacer and will
not provide adequate long term lubrication.

>
> Of course the ribbon will probably be dried up too, but you'll
> probably still see something on the paper. They can be re-inked
> with oil-based ink, or you can still buy new ones for some models.
>

--
Xeno

Nothing astonishes Noddy so much as common sense and plain dealing.
(with apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson)

On 1/04/2024 8:14 pm, Borax Man wrote:
> On 2024-03-27, Xeno <xenolith@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>> On 27/3/2024 8:52 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-26, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>> On 21/03/2024 8:03 pm, Borax Man wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-03-03, Trevor Wilson <trevor@rageaudio.com.au> wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/03/2024 9:00 am, keithr0 wrote:
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/hp-wants-you-to-pay-up-to-36-month-to-rent-a-printer-that-it-monitors/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> HP used to be a great company turning out expensive but top quality
>>>>>>> gear, now they are just a money grubbing mob taking the customer for
>>>>>>> every cent that they can. This is just the latest swindle
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/the-printers-that-require-ink-to-scan-and-fax/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I bet that Hewlett and Packard are turning over in their graves with shame.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> **You'd think. I've HP (laser) printers since the late 1980s (My first
>>>>>> was a LJ-IIIP). Then came some experimentation with other brands. Oki
>>>>>> was nice, but try to locate suitable drivers for the damned thing. Then
>>>>>> there was a disasterous foray into a Samsung laser
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. It was cheap and print quality was decent.
>>>>>> HOWEVER, a simple paper jam required a complete dismantling of the
>>>>>> printer! It was an horrific design. I gave up a few years back and
>>>>>> purchased another HP. I could not be happier. Toner is not cheap, but
>>>>>> print quality, speed and overall versatility of the thing is just
>>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Oh and WRT to print cartridges, let's discuss my old Canon inkjet
>>>>>> scanner/printer/copier. The ink dried out, so I figured I would just use
>>>>>> it as a scanner. Nup. Damned thing will not allow such a thing to occur.
>>>>>> You have to load it with (Canon only) inks (at huge expense) just so you
>>>>>> can scan. Oh yeah, my dedicated Canon scanner wouldn't work with Windows
>>>>>> 10, because they couldn't be bothered releasing drivers for it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My HP just quietly and quickly chugs away, doing what it has always done
>>>>>> for the past 4 years. The odd paper jam (maybe one sheet in every three
>>>>>> or four reams) is quickly and easily dealt with.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I've learned my lesson. I'm sticking with HP. They just work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> FWIW: My other printer is a cheap 'n cheerful Brother ($120.00 from
>>>>>> Officeworks) mono laser. It is similarly well designed, VERY cheap to
>>>>>> run (third party toners are easy and cheap to buy) and just keeps going.
>>>>>> Print quality is not in the same league as the HP, but it is adequate
>>>>>> for most purposes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> These stories make me want to dig out my Epson LX400 Dot Matrix
>>>>> printer and keep it working as a fallback.
>>>>
>>>> **Back in the early 1990s, I purchased 50 Mannesmann Tally (sp?) 24 pin
>>>> dot matrix printers from IBM. They cost me $50.00 each. I sold them all
>>>> for $300.00 each. I checked the original cost - $2,300.00 each! Fabulous
>>>> printer. Tough, reliable and fast (for a dot matrix). A mate who bought
>>>> one for his business was still using it 10 years ago. It refused to stop
>>>> working and he liked it because it would print multi-part forms really
>>>> well. Made in Germany too.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I kind of miss rugged, mechanical tech. Dot Matrix printers, floppy
>>> drives, things that are noisy. There is a certain level of
>>> satisfaction you get being able to see and hear the machines work, the
>>> machines you put into action with a simple command.
>>
>> Yeah, hear those buzzy HDDs work, then head crash when you breathed too
>> hard near them. I too remember those days, floppy drives drifting out of
>> alignment, dot matrix printers that would send you deaf, the days of
>> flaky floppy disks, and even flakier CD ROM drives - I'm glad those days
>> are well and truly gone.
>>
>>
>
> My experience with Floppy Disks was generally good, they suddenly took
> a turn for the worse in the late 90s/early 2000s when the
> manufacturing quality just dropped off a cliff.
>
> I wouldn't go back to using them, but I've just converted some VHS
> home movies to DVD, and the old tapes, nearly 40 years are are all
> still good, whereas burned DVDs? Would they last? A hard drive?

**Depends on the brand DVD. Some brands last well and some don't. I
recently checked a bunch I burned years ago. Most played well, but a few
didn't. The few that didn't play were the same brand. All were stored
appropriately and in the same location.

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