New Equipment Upgrades . . .

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Good news . . . we've been getting new equipment in our store within the last few weeks.

Around 4 or 5 weeks ago, we finally got new Motorola handheld units . . . these are slightly larger than the previous ones we had (and those were so horrible we were convinced that Kitty Corporate had bought those at a church bazaar.)

On the plus side of these: larger, easier to read screens. Brighter displays than even a blind person can see. No more squinting to make out the numbers for me.
Also larger numeric buttons . . . I can easily hit the button I want rather than the one over or under it b/c the previous handhelds had microscopic buttons.

Batteries are easier to change out. No more covers w/hinges on either side that get lost and require tape to hold the battery covers on. These news one pop out w/a hinge on either side that you press at the same time, then the battery slides out enough to reveal a green button that you press and the rest of the battery pops right on out. Just get a new battery out of the charger and pop it in and you are good to go after a warm reboot.

Minus side: requires a 3 key combo (that requires contortionist abilities) to exit out of the particular mode you are in so you can go back to the main menu selection desktop. Also has a safe battery swap mode but is difficult to get to work as well.

Size is a little larger than the previous guns and weigh slightly more. But just like my new e-smoke box mod, I'll gladly take the extra bulk for more power.

Two weeks ago: new computer workstations!!!!! We now have Windows 7 professional and the XP has been retired. I have a shiny new Dell flatscreen on my desk and I can now access the inventory control (just in case I don't have a gun to scan out my reclaim, I can now type it into the computer to take it out of inventory and send back or close out a pallet w/out having to borrow the back office computer) and can access the company itnranet for information on weekly sales planners.

Cons on this: no email access from my workstation or access to the time clock. If I want to clock out for a break, I still have to go to the back computer and log into the 4690 terminal emulator from there.

Turned out Grasshopper wasn't aware of the changes on my workstation. He thought I could get email there now an was surprised when I explained I had no icon for my webmail, nor the 4690 terminal. That may be something that IT can correct, I'm not sure. I'll ask next week when I return to work (on vacation this week) and see what Grasshopper's thoughts are on it.

Even though we have all these new equipment (our fresh departments also got updated scales that are wi-fi connected which are really cool) we still have the same crappy OkiData dot matrix printers in the front office and my DSD work area.

[EricKei]

Heh. Well, dot matrix printers may indeed be crap by today's standard, but the bastards last forever and they're dirt cheap to maintain Hell, the newspaper where I used to work until this past Spring still used one for mailing labels.

[wolfie]

Size is a little larger than the previous guns and weigh slightly more. But just like my new e-smoke box mod, I'll gladly take the extra bulk for more power.

I guess you go for Binford equipment whenever possible.

Even though we have all these new equipment (our fresh departments also got updated scales that are wi-fi connected which are really cool) we still have the same crappy OkiData dot matrix printers in the front office and my DSD work area.

Impact matrix (technically lasers and inkjets are dot matrix, because they make up everything out of tiny dots) may be slow and noisy, but it's rugged, reliable, cheap to run, and the only way to print multi-part forms. Last time I checked, "Paperclips" could still get them by special order.

[Seshat]

Yup. If you want a printer that doesn't get the sneezes every time there's a little bit of dust, you can't user a laser or inject. Gotta be the noisy thumpy sort.

There are actually a number of advantages to them; even though there's problems with them.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Yup. If you want a printer that doesn't get the sneezes every time there's a little bit of dust, you can't user a laser or inject. Gotta be the noisy thumpy sort.

There are actually a number of advantages to them; even though there's problems with them.

That'd be fine, well and good if the damn thing didn't get stuck and start screeching every time it gets damp in the back room (causing the form feed paper to get slightly damp) or the alignment to go off every other page, meaning I have to manually adjust the top of the page so that the next page isn't printing at the bottom of the first.

We have a huge laser all in one on wheels in the front office and I can't tell you how many times that it's been called in for repair. If I had the money every time a tech came out on that thing, I could pay off my medical bills, credit card and have a little left for extra groceries.

Still doesn't change the fact that I'd like to go Office Space on that dot matrix.

[catcul]

I had to upgrade a computer that was next to a dot-matrix printer. That thing was going non-stop the whole time. After 30 minutes of hearing it, I was ready to chuck that thing out of the window.

We have a huge laser all in one on wheels in the front office and I can't tell you how many times that it's been called in for repair. If I had the money every time a tech came out on that thing, I could pay off my medical bills, credit card and have a little left for extra groceries.

Still doesn't change the fact that I'd like to go Office Space on that dot matrix.

Somebody is getting money every time it breaks down.

[ComputerNecromancer]

I had to upgrade a computer that was next to a dot-matrix printer. That thing was going non-stop the whole time. After 30 minutes of hearing it, I was ready to chuck that thing out of the window.

That's *why* noise reduction cabinets were invented.

And if you think a dot matrix printer is noisy, try a Braille embosser (ie a braille "printer"). Noisier than heck an slower, so they take longer to print the same thing.

I've got a blind friend and managed to score one for her about 10 years back. It was intended for one of those huge daisy wheel printers, but he embosser fit just fine.

Not only did it have to be large to fit the embosser, but it had to be *sturdy*. The embosser weighs something like 60 pounds!

It has a cover that turns it into what looks like a large aluminum briefcase for transporting it.

Once when moving stuff she forgot what it weighed and did permanent damage to her shoulder by trying to lift it as if it was a regular suitcase.

[Racket_Man]

And if you think a dot matrix printer is noisy, try a Braille embosser (ie a braille "printer"). Noisier than heck an slower, so they take longer to print the same thing.

.

Try the old old impact belt printers (think of an old style typewriter with the letters/characters/etc. on a belt that rotates and series of hammers that strike each piece separately). Even with a noise reduction cabinet and a sound proofed room you can still hear it 50 feet away. And my office was right next to the sound proofed room.

[Javarod]

Oh i love dot matrix printers, as mentioned, damn near indestructible. A number of auto parts stores out here still use, and one i worked for years upon years ago used to run off quarterly and inventory reports, they'd clean them out (don't want paper dust to catch fire), then leave them running the rest of the weekend.

[Seshat]

That'd be fine, well and good if the damn thing didn't get stuck and start screeching every time it gets damp in the back room (causing the form feed paper to get slightly damp) or the alignment to go off every other page, meaning I have to manually adjust the top of the page so that the next page isn't printing at the bottom of the first.

Diagnosis: it needs to be serviced, the paper needs to be a better quality (that tolerates damp better), and/or the size of the paper vs the size the program is expecting are misaligned.

Any of the above. Plus my usual disclaimer of 'or something I haven't thought of'. Which can include that the printer is just too damn old and it needs more part replacements than is worth paying for.

[EricKei]

I would say they also need to store it somewhere not so damp o_O ...if possible.

Another benefit -- They're needed if you wanna print out multiple identical receipts (etc) of the variety where you have 3-4 sheets of paper that are all bound together as if they were one thick page

[wolfie]

Impact matrix (snip) and the only way to print multi-part forms.

Another benefit -- They're needed if you wanna print out multiple identical receipts (etc) of the variety where you have 3-4 sheets of paper that are all bound together as if they were one thick page

Great minds think alike.

[Chromatix]

It's not so much "impact matrix" as "impact" full stop. The dot-matrix type is the best-known these days, but there were also "daisy wheel", "golf ball" and "line printer" versions which aimed at higher type quality at the expense of losing the ability to print graphics. They're essentially descended from the teletype (itself a traditional typewriter mechanism attached to an electronic actuator) in that respect.

I have a daisy-wheel printer somewhere, but it's a type that won't work with any computer other than the one it came with (unless I reverse-engineer it). I hear there used to be a thriving market for third-party noise-reduction systems for daisy-wheels, including the ones used in IBM's electric typewriters...

The "line printer" was rather special. Whereas the dot-matrix has a row of several pins arranged vertically, and the daisy-wheel had a single hammer (before which revolved a complete set of characters), the line-printer had a row of hammers across the width of the page, one per character column. In front of that, a band of embossed characters spun continuously past them. When the correct character was in front of any given hammer, it would fire, and as soon as all of the hammers had fired, the paper would feed to the next line. This made it considerably faster than printers which operated one character or even one pixel-column at a time - and so loud that industrial-grade earmuffs were required.

One infamous type of line-printer was immortalised by the source code for its device driver, which included several status codes, one of which was "printer on fire". To quote Wikipedia:

The line printer employed a series of status codes, specifically ready, online, and check. If the online status was set to "off" and the check status was set to "on," the operating system would interpret this as the printer running out of paper. However, if the online code was set to "on" and the check code was also set to "on", it meant that the printer still had paper, but was suffering an error (and may still be attempting to run). Due to the potentially hazardous conditions which could arise in early line printers, Unix displayed the message "on fire" to motivate any system operator viewing the message to go and check on the line printer immediately.

[TheSHAD0W]

When the correct character was in front of any given hammer, it would fire, and as soon as all of the hammers had fired, the paper would feed to the next line. This made it considerably faster than printers which operated one character or even one pixel-column at a time - and so loud that industrial-grade earmuffs were required.

Oh, yeah, line printers; they're awesome. They're usually emplaced inside a sound-muffling box because of how loud they get. The limited access also made it great fun to use for the Foot-in-the-Box joke. (This joke program would send a message to the operator console - "Quick! Put your foot in the box!" - then after a few seconds, would send a thousand form-feed commands to the printer. The operator would have a fun time trying to prevent a huge amount of paper from being wasted; either taking the printer off-line, or sticking a foot in the box of paper causing it to rip and the printer to stop feeding it.)