Tom Hula <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>... I won't even go into the fact that HP is no longer supporting us
>with low-cost line printers of any kind. I'm sorry, but laserjet
>printers just don't work everywhere.
I agree. At Adager, we have a mix of line printers and LaserJet
printers (not to mention bubble-jet printers, Apple Color LaserWriters,
and what-have-you, including some of Wirt's System2000 daisy printers,
which I believe Wirt doesn't have any longer :-)
We do our own maintenance (hardware, software, network) for the
printers that HP no longer supports. We also have support contracts
for the LaserJet printers that HP still supports. At home, I have a
fully-loaded 8000 and a fully-loaded 5Si (with all input trays,
output stacker, duplex, you name it). The main Adager office also
enjoys this kind of super-duper printer.
Last week, I was having difficulties with one of my home printers
and I called HP. A very knowledgeable HP (Boise) engineer laughed
when I told him that I had experienced "the mother of all paper
jams". After he walked me through the disassembly of paper-path
regions -- some of which I didn't even know existed --, he agreed :-)
I did the voodoo that he recommended and issued a command that
exercised the paper path (duplex and all). All appeared well and we
closed the call.
The next print job included the ISO/IEC 9899 International
standard for the C Programming Language (duplex, pre-punched,
almost 600 pages). By the time it tried to print the "Environment"
page (p.9) it ground to a halt. I called HP again and I was
guided through yet another paper-path chase, cleaning bits-and-pieces
of smeared C material (it felt like debugging :-)
The engineer asked, "you don't happen to have another printer of
this type handy, do you?" I said, "but of course I do". Happily,
we agreed to "cannibalize" (a common HP term as applied to the
hp3000 :-) the other printer and to substitute a few of
the guts. At some point, things started working like magic. We
agreed that "that" was the piece in question. HP promptly sent
the replacement and everything was great a couple of days later.
(Fortunately, I could live happily with just one printer while
the new piece arrived :-)
The whole experience was fun and educational. The small boy in
me loves to tinker with all kinds of toys.
>In any case, all I got from HP was "the speech" on why they couldn't
>do anything for me or even suggest anything. The speech was
>carefully schooled, as he basically said, in nice sounding words,
>tough luck and too bad and have a nice day.
In my case, I didn't get any canned speeches. Perhaps I was lucky
because I was dealing with top-notch people from HP's Boise facility
(and we chatted about Sun Valley being just down the street, etc.)
In fact, they WERE extremely proud to work for HP and I mentioned to
them how their IT department used Adager on their TurboIMAGE
databases, and so on. They *knew* about MPE-Image and they were
very pleased that I worked with HP's products.
>So in other words, if everything was just right for them and I was
>still having a problem, then they would be forced to actually help.
>Useless.
I am sorry to hear that Tom had such a bad experience. Our two
(very different) results suggest that it is nearly impossible
to extrapolate from specific instances. Two completely different
conclusions can be (rightly) drawn from our cases.
I sincerely hope these wonderful HP Boise engineers will not be
asked (or "motivated") to leave HP. That would be tantamount to
throwing the baby with the bath water. Not that HP has ever done
that, of course :-)
_______________
| |
| |
| r | Alfredo [log in to unmask]
| e | http://www.adager.com
| g | F. Alfredo Rego
| a | Manager, R & D Labs
| d | Adager Corporation
| A | Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000 U.S.A.
| |
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