I love my laser printer. And I hate Microsoft’s Vista operating system. The HP1100a is an ancient black and white laser printer. It doesn’t hold a massive amount of paper. But it holds enough. It also has an alternate feed for envelopes and such and a built in scanner that is great for making the occasional copy of a document. The toner cartridge lasts a good long time and the thing is relatively fast and very reliable. Oh, and I hate ink jet printers for a whole host of reasons. A long time ago, I had connected it to a now obsolete but still functioning Netgear network print server. Everyone in my house that connect to the network could print to their heart’s content. Fast forward to the point where both of my daughter’s computers have crapped out beyond the point where repair is economically reasonable. I got them laptops and the only choice for an operating system was Vista. Fast forward some more to the point where both of them are actually printing out their homework. Not on my current system.
The ancient print server doesn’t support Vista and updates for the drivers stopped about the time gas was still affordable. So I ordered a new print server from NewEgg that specifically supported Vista. The tricky part was finding one that supported old Centronics/parallel interfaces. Seems that USB is the connection of choice these days. Found one. Small problem. HP, in their infinite wisdom, decided to use a “mini Centronics” connector on this model. I needed to find a mini Centronics to Centronics adapter. Not something that Best Buy is gonna keep on hand since I am one of possibly 8 people in the world who might need one. Went to my favorite PC parts place to see if he could order one for me. Everything came up “no longer stocked”. Joy. I found one from Sewell. Everything is working and everyone can print. Hopefully, this will last at least a decade!
Non Sequitur 