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Comment by clemailacct1 | Hacker News Reader

I’m surprised to not see an Office Space reference mentioned yet.

Office Space is from 1999, so people under 35 had little chance to watch it when it came out. It is a classic for those in the know, but not like Big Lebowski in the sense that everyone is talking about.

To our young people in IT: Watch "Office Space"! It is still hilarious and you may find it easier to recognize some more or less subtle repferences (for example to red staplers, tps reports etc.). Also, it features some solid rap songs by Scarface, Geto Boys etc..

Edit: Here is the printer scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wsjroVlu8

I named the old LaserJet 4050 that sits in the corner of my home office PC_LOAD_LETTER. The thing is, since it seldom gets used I have a tendency to get irrationally angry for the briefest moment when I see that infamous string appear on my screen before remembering that's just the name of the dependable old tank. Maybe I should change its name but I sort of find it funny (the name and and the flash of rage).

If America used metric paper, all these jokes could never have existed. The unexpected benefits of the traditional system.

PC_LOAD_A4 just isn't confusing enough.

LOAD_A4_PAPER or INSERT_A4_PAPER etc also fit within the limited length of the message.

“PAPER” would be enough to trigger some logical checks for most, surely?

I have done a stint of helpdesk work and can’t see that this would be too catastrophic.

"Paper Out" would be sufficient.

Yes, it'd cause the person to check every tray, but in my experience they do anyway.

HP should have just added stickers that said "FYI, PC means paper carrier".

They had 2 unused spaces, total of 16 characters. There's nothing perfect that would fit, like "TRAY ADD LETTER PAPER" is too long. But, they could have scrolled something like that left to right.

“ADD PAPER”, “NEEDS PAPER”, “CHECK PAPER”, “NO LETTER PAPER”?

"NO LETTER PAPER" is the best of your suggestions.

The "LETTER" part was meaningful, because it meant the "LETTER" size, as opposed to some other size. "PC LOAD LEGAL", for example, is another message it displays.

Technically PC is meaningful as well, as distinct from the side-feed tray, say. It's just a dreadful acronym because, in an office IT context, no one thinks "ah, that's the paper carrier".

Probably they could have just omitted it entirely and let the use work out which paper source was empty. After all, since not everyone knew what the message many at all, that's what they did anyway!

What do you mean? It's mentioned in the article.

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