Re: printer problems {again}

[J R FOX jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

--- Leslie Savan  wrote:

> Carlo--Thank you! I now have it working!
>    The printer cable hadn't "gone bad," but in
> checking if it had, I
> opened a little door where the cable goes into the
> printer and found that it
> was loose. (When I had unplugged and replugged all
> the cables earlier to
> check if that was the problem, I was checking only
> from the ends that could
> be plugged--not from the ends that disappeared into
> the computer,
> monitor...or printer.


Hi Leslie,

Funny you should mention this. My father, now in his
70's and a Xy user of long standing, has tripped over
this very problem once or twice (with an HP 4L, I
think). He is not much more technically inclined than
you, I'd guess, but was able to troubleshoot it
himself, after much exasperation and seemingly
exhausting all readily available possibilities for a
few days.

In such a situation, particularly for those of us who
persist in using hardware & software solutions (no
matter how good or reliable they have been) which the
world at large has long forgotten, you may find that
too little tech knowledge can be a very dangerous
thing. Maybe not for this case, but for various
issues that can crop up. So, filling in some of those
gaps, if possible, might still be a good idea.

This is not to suggest that you would have been any
better off with the latest hardware and the software
in use today. It has probably left the users that
much further behind. DOS functions at a much more
fundamental level than today's operating systems, and
the inner workings of DOS app.s are arguably a good
deal simpler. To top it all off, any decent tech
support you don't have to pay a tidy sum for has
pretty much gone away.

Had all else failed, and it was worth it to you to
spend the money (because of a deadline, or whatever),
depending on where you live, there's a pretty good
chance you could find a capable computer consultant
who would make a service call. In that case, you
should look for someone of rather long experience, who
remembers the older hardware, DOS, and DOS app.s.
Such people still exist, though it may take some
digging to find them.


Jordan