Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by ColoursofOSINT | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

ColoursofOSINT

The current state of printers is sad. Everything wrong with tech is enclosed within them.

1. You get DRM inc, which increases the cost even you buy the "required toners" [^1]

2. Don't get to control what they print:

- Adds stuff to your page [^2] - Won't let you print certain patterns [^3]

[^1]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/01/chip-shortage-ha...

[^2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code

[^3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation

View on HN

I'm pretty happy with my Brother laser printer.

Recent HN discussions on this subject mentioned that Brother, too, has begun to betray their reputation for openness.

It was only a matter of time. I bought mine for this reason, and I realize that when the time comes to replace it, I will have to find another vendor, if one even exists, since Brother no longer waves that banner of openness.

Yep, as a relatively recent (2.5 years ago) convert from HP to Brother because HP was pulling all this crap with with 3rd party toner cartridges.

The Brother has proved to be just as bad, and in some ways even worse.

Once it decides the (genuine) toner must be empty it basically refuses to print without some complex reset procedures. At least the HP would just happily print faded pages all day long.

My Brother printer once said the cartridge was empty and I refused to believe it. After browsing the internet a bit, I found a trick on an obscure forum that worked for me: you put a small piece of tape on the cartridge chip, and miraculously it's not detected as "empty" anymore. Two years after the procedure, I'm still printing on the same cartridge that was supposedly empty.

Thank you for this. I didn't know about the EURion constellation thing. Very cool/alienating examples of DRM.

Also the recyclability of those toners and ink cartridges, they'd rather sell you a subscription for cartridges than allow 3rd party refillable ones

Reply on news.ycombinator.com