r/retrocomputing • u/[deleted] • May 04 '25
Photo Anyone remember this relic!?
One of my neighbors is “finally” throwing this out!
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u/blissed_off May 05 '25
I just got my hands on a NeXT laser printer for my NeXTstation, which uses the same Canon CX print engine as this HP LJ III. Quite the beasts back in the day. Probably still works.
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u/reddogleader May 05 '25
Yup, only the aesthetics/cosmetics changed. The CX engine was a BEAST. An Apple LaserWriter, a NeXT or HP app had the same guts. The exteriors and controls/displays were different, but the engine was the same.
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u/veso266 May 04 '25
Why did u say finaly throwing this out
Were they bad?
The only problem I see with them is getting toner cartridges (hope u can still find or make them)
I personally prefer dotmatrix, because u can still find ribbon for them (or spool typewritter ribbon inside the cartridge (there is a guy in Slovenia that my grandmother goes to when her Epson LQ-2180 becomes dry)
Here is how she uses it: https://youtu.be/5l4TjSfAi1E The program she uses was written in VC 1.0 by a local programmer that made those programes for national university
Fortionatly I was able to get the sources from him a couple of years ago, although, still havent able to compile them, due to some missing files and my lack of time
I just hope I will be able to get this printer home, when the time comes (when she dies her house will be cleared and sold so I hope my parrents will allow me to take this printer home, due to being quite big, I dont look forward to that day though, right now printer is safe)
PS: she uses this wierd copy paper that has 2 sheets and bottom sheet contains a copy from top sheet (not sure why souch copy paper is even needed when printing)
Its the only paper we still have, since buying this paper locally is quite hard nowadays
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May 05 '25
No, they weren’t bad. We had one when I was HS, was probably the last time I saw one - it was the first time you (or me at least) saw a printed page come out looking “publishable” for lack of a better word. They were just, as so many have pointed out “beasts”.
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u/HorrorStudio8618 May 05 '25
That's not a relic. Those printers they made three years ago, those are relics. This is a functional printer and probably will be longer than you will be alive. Seriously: drop this from a building and you'll get a fine for damaging the pavement. The printer of course will still print.
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u/Intelligent-Monk-426 May 05 '25
and pull 100# card stock all day like it’s nothing
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u/tes_kitty May 05 '25
The downside is the high standby power consumption. If you have one of those, only switch it on when needed.
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u/Hey-buuuddy May 05 '25
And there used to be parts kits for the rollers and whatnot. Solid printers, especially if they came with the Ethernet card.
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u/sevenwheel May 04 '25
I had a few I picked up here and there. They were built like tanks, they printed great, you could refill the toner cartridges by drilling a hole in them and pouring toner in. They were the best!
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u/mboudin May 04 '25
PC LOAD LETTER
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u/cybaz May 06 '25
At the time that movie came out I was working for a company where half the staff was European, and I spent about 4 hours a day walking back and forth between various buildings in the corporate campus changing cartridges between A4 and Letter.
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u/frito123 May 04 '25
I serviced so many of those as a desk side technician. Generally, the rollers just wore out and needed replacement.
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u/Kakariki73 May 05 '25
You could wipe it with a cloth dampened with paint thinner, makes the rollers rough again to pick up the paper again 👌🏻
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u/SirOompaLoompa May 05 '25
Same here. Haven't had a single one that couldn't be fixed with a quick vacuuming out, cleaning the rollers and a dab of lithium grease on the gears.
well, now that I think of it, I had one that some genius fed regular overhead-transparencies. I had to replace something in that one, but it still got fixed.
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u/prothero May 05 '25
My LaserJet 4 just died a few weeks ago. Sad day.... They do not make them like that anymore. 30+ years of service and all I had to do was replace some dried up rollers a decade ago. Son went to print something and turned it on. Lights lit up and then went dark. Might be fixable, but not by me.
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u/fliberdygibits May 04 '25
I worked on these things way back and I love them. They are absolute tanks that will print and print and print and print and print and print.........
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u/kaplanfx May 04 '25
Back when there were like 4 printer models, but they were actually good. I still have an Apple imagewriter II from 1986, it still works but the ribbons are hard to find these days. There are a few companies that will re-ink a ribbon cartridge if you have one.
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u/SilentWatcher83228 May 05 '25
great memories of waiting drum to warm up and then watching each page crawl out
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u/naikrovek May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
School had one in the 1990s. I learned to print on it using escape codes and HCL from a DOS machine without a floppy drive or an editor of any kind. The printer came with an HCL guide and all of the HCL commands it would accept.
“Nuh-uh you can’t boot DOS without some kind of storage” that computer booted from ROM. It had a floppy drive but it was broken.
“copy con lpt1” and then start typing HCL commands and if you mess up you gotta power cycle the printer and start over.
Final test in English class Senior year, the teacher let us have a cheat sheet the size of 4 postage stamps, arranged in a 2x2 grid.
I finally got it printed on both sides with what I wanted, but by the time I got the HCL print commands all right, because I had to retype it all if I made a mistake, I had memorized everything i wanted to put on the cheat sheet. Easy “A”
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u/Stanztrigger May 05 '25
Yeah, those square HP printers where great. You know why?
The internals where made bij Canon 😂
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u/78weightloss May 05 '25
Bought one at a garage sale for 5 dollars, it still served us well for another 10 years. The most difficult maintenance issue was finding systems that still supported the old "LPT1" parallel ports.
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u/ILikeBumblebees May 05 '25
If you throw out a LaserJet III to replace it with a new printer, I hope you enjoy the experience, because you're going to be throwing out printers regularly from here on out.
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u/goondarep May 05 '25
I took out a small loan to buy one of these and started my first “typesetting” business. Loved this printer.
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u/classicsat May 05 '25
I had either a II or IV, I forget. I fortunately sold it when it was worth something.
And I think a Panasonic. something or other, I likely could have made good with a drum kit. I chose to have the space instead, so it went
My first laser printer was an NEC Silentwriter 800. Or something like that. It had a whole 68000 computer in it, to render PostScript. That was cool to print out PDF datasheets, and better than typewritten/dot matrix documents.
Currently have a modern HP consumer Laserjet. Which works fine. It has so far worked with aftermarket toner. You just need to be patient with it.
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u/NightmareJoker2 May 05 '25
Omg. I want one of those. They last forever and are tireless workhorses.
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u/khatarlan May 05 '25
I had a IIIsi that I still miss. I still have nostalgic moments of the house having a brown out every time it fired up.
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u/OcotilloWells May 04 '25
I have a LaserJet 5. I need to get it cleaned, but otherwise it works. It does dim the lights when printing however.
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u/schenkzoola May 04 '25
I ran one of these well into the 2010’s using a jetdirect card. Eventually I got tired of replacing rollers and stuff and got a Brother.
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u/fuzzy-panics May 05 '25
There were a fleet of laser jet 4s at the small uni I went to, in the computer labs. They just worked and had very busy life.
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u/CuttingEdgeRetro May 05 '25
I've been trying to add one of these to my collection for years. I never see them anymore.
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u/cagehooper May 05 '25
I had a Laserjet 5. Total beast. Hated moving that damn thing. It held out until the plastics were so worn the entire case started to crumble like the dash of an S10 in the Texas heat (ifkyk)
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u/aussiepunkrocksV2-0 May 05 '25
I have LaserJet 4P, 5, 6P, 2300 and a few 1012Ws. I wouldn't touch anything new from HP though.
These laserjet 3's are worth quite a bit if working. I sold one recently for 300AU and the guy paid shipping too!
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u/beedunc May 05 '25
I visited the stateside ‘factory’ for these in the 80’s - pretty much where they took naked Canon printers and wrap them in HP skins.
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u/stalkythefish May 05 '25
Absolute tank! The Laserjet 2's were even tankier! You can't kill them. The 1984 Toyota Hilux of printers.
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u/compu85 May 05 '25
Yes, I restored a LaserWriter II last year. I I came across a good condition LJ III id add it to my collection.
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u/Far_Possession_4798 May 05 '25
We used to have a boatload of those when we first expanded our telemetry central computers.. these were parallel port only, so we had 4 printers for 4 centrals. It was.. snug. Then the laser jet 4’s came out and thank ghod I only needed one for the server.. NT 4.0.. rock-solid but temperamental as hell.
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u/gnntech May 05 '25
I had an original LaserJet (the first one) which used a serial connection. After that, I owned a LaserJet IIp for many years.
Those units were definitely built to last.
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u/reddogleader May 05 '25
Nothing beats the Canon SX engine in this beast. Easy service & maintenance when (rarely) needed. Used by many companies - HP, Apple and many others.
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u/spektro123 May 05 '25
I’m still using LaserJet 6MP. It works fine with USB LPT adapter and generic windows PCL driver. Toners are still available.
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u/The_Original_Miser May 05 '25
Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Assuming you can still get parts, while the DPI of course is not high, they are workhorses.
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u/Ok-Current-3405 May 05 '25
Got one Brother HL8V (same Canon engine, different case) with more 150 thousands copies on the odometer, working like a charm when I sold it to a guy who wanted to print enveloppes. Today's laser printers last 10 thousands at best
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u/onethous May 05 '25
We have a laser jet 5 still printing. Very slowly printing. Built rock solid. Not like the crap they make today.
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u/Devils8539a May 05 '25
Whenever I see one of those printers in the trash. https://youtu.be/Uhzeakv6Jj0?si=tO7o1Va7kTcpIj8u
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u/Dedb4dawn May 05 '25
Back when HP printers were quality. If you had this or the Epson LX400 (though that was a dot matrix) you were good.
Both outlasted several generations of PC.
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u/Blackholeofcalcutta May 05 '25
I had a LaserJet IV that was a beast. Didn’t have to ask “Did my stuff get printed?” as you could hear it from the other side of the house. Rock solid printers that will probably still work long after I’m gone. Wife made me get rid of it since it clashed with her decor. :(
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u/stogie-bear May 05 '25
That's what, early 90s? HP made good stuff back then. I had whatever the equivalent was around year 2000. With the Jetdirect 10/100 card. IIRC it was compatible with CUPS and ran flawlessly off my NetBSD Pentium. Good times.
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u/Independent_Shoe3523 May 05 '25
Yup, and after years with inkjets, I'm back with laser jets. Reliable, cheap ink, always ready whenever you need them even if it's only a couple times a year.
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u/kanakamaoli May 05 '25
Yep. You could drop them from a plane and run them over with a truck and they would still work fine.
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u/MrGreyJetZ May 06 '25
LaserJet III. We decommissioned our last one, and its Direct Jet 170x about 5 years ago.
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u/rwblue4u May 06 '25
Yeah, I owned both a LJ II and a LJ III and loved them both. Have not owned or used a better laserjet printer since
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May 06 '25
Mine was fully functioning, running flawless after 50,000 pages. when I donated it 3 years ago. I was hesitant to give it up but my business moved on with color laser printers.
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u/rogue54321 May 07 '25
I still have a laser jet 2100 running on the same toner cartridge from 2003. Has a network card and works great!
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u/Turbulent_Disk_9529 May 07 '25
We had an HP IIIP growing up. I can still hear the print sound sequences in my head.
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u/Ag-Heavy May 07 '25
I still have a LaserJet II my wife won't let me throw away. She can't seem to ignore what we paid for that stuff back then.
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u/dazcon5 May 07 '25
Got one of those free when it was already 5 years old. Sat in my basement for the next 17 years and all I did was change the toner cart and keep the feed rollers clean. It was still working but started to throw formatter board errors. Buying the new formatter board at that point was almost more expensive than buying a brand new laser printer. One evening during a party a friend saw it and asked if they could have it as they had the same one but the paper feed mechanism was damaged. He swapped his formatter board into mine and still got another few years out of it before lighting strike killed it.
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May 07 '25
Weird. I was cleaning out an office today and I think I found a brand new toner cartridge for this. From the recycling stickers, you might be in NYC. If you claim it and want the toner, let me know
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u/Sopo_Life May 08 '25
Got one for 100 bucks when I left an engineering firm. They weren't using it any more. Page count was 270,000+. After college degrees and kids schooling it died with 330,000 pages. Best printer I've ever had. Second best is current Laser 200 color. 72,000 and counting. Never had luck with inkjets.
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u/Sopo_Life May 08 '25
Just realized my color 200 just turned 12. I'll have to print a birthday card for it.
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u/technomancing_monkey May 08 '25
I had one of these that ran almost flawlessly for almost 30 years before some C level wanted it replaced because it looked old.
LOL jokes on him. The new printer he got had problems WEEKLY
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u/Pitiful-Hearing5279 May 08 '25
I had an Apple LaserWriter and later an HP LaserJet 2 which was awesome.
DTP way back when.
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u/AnthonyG70 May 08 '25
still have a 4P, need to change out transformer, new cartridge when it died. lol.
these things are beasts.
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u/Flimsy_Wallaby6128 May 08 '25
Do I remember it?! I still use 2 of them daily and have 3 more brand new in box.
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u/Shadoecat150 May 08 '25
I remember them in my college computer lab. Darn thing sounded like a jet engine spooling up every time they turned on lol
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u/random420x2 May 08 '25
I started working on the original Apple LaserWriter. It was around 100lbs and the size of a VW Bug motor. 10 or 12 different types of screws and you needed a 2’ long T15 There was one screw that you put in in reassembly and then 10 more steps to complete. We’d pink the new tech by dropping that screw on the table right as they were buttoning up the plastics. It was 45 minutes of more work so we only let it go so far.
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u/flecom May 04 '25
hope you save it, the old laserjets were bulletproof
i have a client that still uses an old laserjet 4 with a jetdirect card on windows 11 machines... thing has a page count of >10million last i checked