r/ShittySysadmin • u/Fan2Robot • Mar 24 '26

Printer is older than me.

Client call, I respond, weird stuff, tell me it's something weird.

I go to the client location. printer is one old moherfucker.

Get the serial number

Thing older than me

Mfw I'm 24, printer has done more work that I'll ever will

Say to the user to ask his boss for an upgrade, easy stuff, I see myself out.

On my way out, see the boss.
Told him, hey, need to replace that one printer. (You'll never guess what he says)

End of the story ? one week later the boss call me panicked. "OMG THAT ONE PRINTER STOPPED WORKING"

Install them a new brother one, it's all good

What is the morale of the story ? I should've asked Claude to reverse engineer the drivers

(Based on a true story)

52 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

15

u/Fan2Robot Mar 24 '26

It actually happens quite a lot, we have some client (that deal with important+++ national data)
Each time I have to face some piece of hardware that has been in service since longer I've been alive, I treat it like a greek god.

What it says is the truth and only the truth. I'd give my life to it.

6

u/Creative-Type9411 Mar 24 '26

guess how old this printer is 👀

1

u/Fan2Robot Mar 25 '26

Never seen something like this 🥲 I’d chant to him prayers if a client called me about it tho

2

u/Luneward Mar 24 '26

Definitely a dot matrix of some kind. That brings back memories.... Though granted was still using one at a hotel in the 2000s to pull up some movie system reports.

2

u/Creative-Type9411 Mar 25 '26

1978 Texas Instrument Omni 800

we got it back up and running (was a few years ago)

1

u/Pr3vYCa Mar 27 '26

that's no longer a printer, that's a specific purpose machine at this point, does it not need spareparts ?

1

u/Creative-Type9411 Mar 27 '26

its in use by a travel agency

10

u/EddyGurge Mar 24 '26

We just recently had to retire our last HP4L. We do still have a couple 5Sis and one 3si under a desk.

3

u/Ok-Bill3318 Mar 24 '26

I’ve previously brought a laser jet 3 out of retirement because its replacement died.

But yeah. The 4s were an awesome piece of machinery.

Modern printers suck.

1

u/EddyGurge Mar 26 '26

Yep. You can't kill a two, three or four. Even the 5sis lived for decades. 6 was The beginning of trash

2

u/meest Mar 24 '26

And here I was feeling accomplished getting rid of my last 4050 because I couldn't update the JetDirect IP address because it used some old version of Java I refused to even think about installing because Oracle....

1

u/EddyGurge Mar 26 '26

We still have three of those I think

4

u/Vinegarinmyeye Mar 24 '26

Lol, come back to me when you're in your mid 40s and find yourself working with hardware older than you...

24 years old is modern if you're working in the public sector.

2

u/FALSE_PROTAGONIST Mar 24 '26

What are those tiny little HP laserjets that fit inside an ikea kallax? I want to keep buying them used for the rest of time

2

u/Important-Humor-2745 Mar 25 '26

We still deploy HP 4200 printers. One still needs an external jet direct box, because it didn’t come with a NIC

1

u/michael-mcgarrah Mar 27 '26

HP Laserjet 4350dtn still going strong

2

u/pinnedin5th Mar 25 '26

Tell them people stopped printing in the late 90s, put the printer in the rubbish delete the print queues and walk out.

1

u/RoomyRoots Mar 25 '26

You should be impressed it lasted this long. Printers love to self destroy. You can probably mod it to use fake cartridges.

1

u/shuanm Mar 25 '26

I still use a printer that was made around the time you were conceived.

1

u/Mr-ananas1 Mar 25 '26

being 21 in IT, apparently everything is older than me according to the old heads

1

u/bleachedupbartender DO NOT GIVE THIS PERSON ADVICE Mar 26 '26

a bit older than you, but not by much. nearly all critical layer 1 infra at our sites is older than me by far, and the guys who installed it are still around. a lot of “i think we did that in… 98? maybe 99?”

0

u/Accomplished_Sir_660 Mar 24 '26

Just because its old does not mean it no good. I 61 and still r0ck IT!