So at work we have an old VERY specialized label printer. its a thermal transfer printer (not the cheap heat sensitive thermal labels that turn black when you apply heat) used by our sprinkler guys to label precut/welded steel pipe. The software they use to design the systems spits out labels to tell the fab guys what to do with it, and in the end, the installers where the finished pipes go. They can prefab the system in our shop and then slam together the job instead of spending time cutting/threading pipes on site.
So its beyond time to decommission the print server that runs the printer. We looked into a new modern printer (this one was EOLed in 2014) but at $2,000 it seemed silly since it still works well. Now the rubber meets the road and we HAVE to shut down the print server PC running it (Vista). the HP JetDirects we have dont work. So I thought "I'll buy the internal card to replace the PC print server, and make it a standalone printer, and solve the problem." Great. Found one on amazon from TekSwamp." so I ordered it. They sent the wrong thing. It appeared to be the guts of an external device instead of a card to insert into the printer. So I did an exchange. New one showed up today. Same problem.
So I tried ebay. "OOOH!!!!! LOOKY!!!! SOMEBODY ELSE WITH THE PART!!!!!" Wait a minute... the seller is TekSwamp. Sonofoa..."[insert Christmas Vacation rant here]
So Monday I tell the C level over that department "You're buying a new printer. Like it or not."
So its beyond time to decommission the print server that runs the printer. We looked into a new modern printer (this one was EOLed in 2014) but at $2,000 it seemed silly since it still works well. Now the rubber meets the road and we HAVE to shut down the print server PC running it (Vista). the HP JetDirects we have dont work. So I thought "I'll buy the internal card to replace the PC print server, and make it a standalone printer, and solve the problem." Great. Found one on amazon from TekSwamp." so I ordered it. They sent the wrong thing. It appeared to be the guts of an external device instead of a card to insert into the printer. So I did an exchange. New one showed up today. Same problem.
So I tried ebay. "OOOH!!!!! LOOKY!!!! SOMEBODY ELSE WITH THE PART!!!!!" Wait a minute... the seller is TekSwamp. Sonofoa..."[insert Christmas Vacation rant here]
So Monday I tell the C level over that department "You're buying a new printer. Like it or not."