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back to article Office junior had one job: Tearing perforated bits off tractor-feed dot matrix printer paper

Why look at that! Friday is upon us, which means it’s time to read this week’s edition of On-Call, our weekly column featuring Register readers’ recollections of tech support jobs gone wrong. This week meet “Pablo” who told us that “In the '90s I worked as a field service engineer for one of the leading companies supplying IT …

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  1. A K Stiles
    Boffin

    It's printing upside down!

    Several times (now in history) I've had to deal with people complaining that the printer was printing the letters upside down, to go to the print room, pause the print run because clearly leaving it to carry on printing 100 letters in the meantime was the best plan, open the paper drawer and rotate the sheaf of headed paper by 180 degrees so the heading was in the correct location - as stated by the large label I'd previously affixed to the front of the paper drawer ("Headed paper only, heading this end, face down"). Also removing the plain paper from the headed drawer, readjusting the paper-size margins and the old classic of pressing 'resume' on the printer to compel it to print the 'letter' format document onto the A4 sized paper when it has "stopped working again". Amazing the number of times one could resolve a problem by simply reading the information displayed on the LCD screen and doing what it said.

    48 0 Reply
    1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's printing upside down!

      > Amazing the number of times one could resolve a problem by simply reading the information displayed on the LCD screen and doing what it said.

      "PC LOAD LETTER"? What the fuck does *that* mean?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQdNbvSGok

      15 0 Reply
      1. David Nash Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: It's printing upside down!

        We all know what it means, but why doesn't it just print on A4 anyway?

        3 0 Reply
        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: It's printing upside down!

          "We all know what it means, but why doesn't it just print on A4 anyway?"

          Depends on the printer, either firmware or driver may have the option. HP lasers used to have A4/Letter override, but that seems to be a fairly well hidden driver option now rather than something the printer does itself.

          4 0 Reply
          1. Alan Brown Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: It's printing upside down!

            "Depends on the printer, either firmware or driver may have the option. "

            Every printer I setup, gets this enabled and it's on the print server too.

            If the message pops up it means the user has been bolloxing with settings as it's in the defaults loaded to workstations as they load up the printer.

            None of that is helped by the fact (which pisses me off no end) that Postscript standards say that Language English = 'US letter' and Language {anything else} == A4, which is 'helpfully' also the default for MS word and Openoffice

            There's only one variety of "English" where the paper type is "US letter" and the vast majority of native english speakers use A4 paper.

            13 0 Reply
    2. gotes
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's printing upside down!

      PC LOAD LETTER

      (oh crap, you beat me to it)

      5 0 Reply
    3. Alan Brown Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: It's printing upside down!

      "Amazing the number of times one could resolve a problem by simply reading the information displayed on the LCD screen and doing what it said."

      It's even more amazing what getting the user to read what the LCD says and asking "Now, what do you suppose that might mean?" in front of a room full of onlookers does, in terms of having them stop repeatedly calling you out for the same damned problem.

      5 0 Reply
  2. Richard Crossley
    Boffin

    I know that printer!

    That graphic is either an Epson LX80 or LX86 (I see it was sold under supplier badges too) a rather noisy and slow 9 pin dot matrix printer from the 1980s.

    https://www.hottoner.com.au/image/cache/printers/epson/ribbon/Epson%20LX80-200x200.jpg

    Sad, I know, but it's nearly beer o'clock here.

    6 0 Reply
    1. Simon Harris
      Reply Icon

      Re: I know that printer!

      Almost - although the buttons aren't quite right.

      2 0 Reply
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know that printer!

      Sadder still, I had the EX version (don't recall the LX one for colour) and I recall fitting the colour option to be one of the first (and most fiddly) screwdriver jobs I had (and have) ever done in IT. It was very hard to locate the components (all sorts of bits in the way). I recall the device almost screamed as it developed a page, and given the 4 colour ribbon it would print each line 4 times varying only the pitch without modulating volume.

      I recall it got me good marks for a school report (think I was one of the first to word-process homework) and then began the long and slippery slope from book review homework into the IT business...

      8 0 Reply
      1. Richard Crossley
        Reply Icon

        Re: I know that printer!

        My LX80 certainly didn't have a colour option, just various shades of grey depending how many times you reprinted the same line.

        Most of my O level and A level homeworks were done using it. Out put from Wordwise!

        3 0 Reply
      2. Diogenes
        Reply Icon

        Re: I know that printer!

        I had a uni assignment for systems analysis and design bumped up from a B+to A+ as i had printed portrait on an a4 landscape printer (ie the tractor holes were on the top an bottom of my pages).

        The fact that i had been sole access to the very expensive printer for 3 months and was given time to play (best job i ever had ) helped as well as very helpful IBM SE whose bacon I saved on several occassions(advice for other users of the printer) supplying me with several redbooks and internal manuals with the otherwise unpublished control codes, helped.

        0 0 Reply
  3. Aladdin Sane
    Headmaster

    Stationery

    That is all.

    13 0 Reply

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Stationery

      The print-head is often stationary, for lack of loaded stationery...

      24 0 Reply
      1. Aladdin Sane
        Reply Icon

        Re: My complements

        You swine!

        14 0 Reply
    3. NXM Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Stationery

      A friend of mine reckons he saw a sign on a door of an office he was visiting which said 'The stationary department has moved'. That is just sublime.

      17 0 Reply
  4. OssianScotland

    In a similar vein, early 1980s watching a boss waiting for his financials printout to emerge from the impact printer. Neatly dressed - business suit (jacket open) and tie, and holding a cup of coffee. He saw an interesting bit emerge, leaned over to look more closely and... I now know that coffee, polyester scraps and high speed printers do not form a good combination

    31 0 Reply
    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Why couldn't the printer have just done the right thing, sucked in his tie and then printed all over his head?

      25 0 Reply
    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Had it been a real high speed (drum) printer, he'd be dead.

      Those things are nothing to mess around with. They have a very large motor spinning that drum.

      7 0 Reply
      1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Had it been a real high speed (drum) printer, he'd be dead.

        Or even one of the old IBM line printers. You really, really didn't want to be in the same room when it was printing and especially didn't want to put anything you cared about anywhere near the print head..

        7 0 Reply
        1. Admiral Grace Hopper
          Reply Icon

          Proper printers aren’t for messing with

          Drum printers were lethal. Similarly, chain printers would eat the unwary alive. Long hair and neck ties had to be safely secured before venturing anywhere near them.

          7 0 Reply
          1. jake Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Proper printers aren’t for messing with

            Neckties were fair game for anyone with a pair of scissors at several Silly Con Valley companies I was employed by in the '70s through the '80s ... Even IBM field engineers removed them before entering Santa Clara County. The damn things just weren't safe, and needed to be eradicated.

            3 1 Reply
  5. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

    I think I had one of those printers

    Certainly a Mannesmann Tally most likely an MT-86. Quite robust but noisy. Not as noisy as the Diablo daisy wheel printer, however. That sounded like a machine gun going off. Quite apart from the hellish racket, it broke down so often we thought naming it Diablo was very very appropriate.

    12 0 Reply
    1. Oz
      Reply Icon

      Re: I think I had one of those printers

      We had a Juki daisywheel printer at home. It was slow and very noisy. You knew when someone was printing as the whole house reverberated!

      2 0 Reply
  6. gaz 7

    I remember when...

    We started rolling out word processors and laser printers to the medical secretaries in the hospital I worked in (still do).

    We had several that took a while to learn that you didn't use carbon paper when printing 2 or 3 copies.

    We had several that would do that but with the added bonus of paper clipping or stapling the sheets together first

    We had several more that would print, proof read, tippex out the errors then feed back in with wet tippex and reprint

    We had several that tried to use up the old non-laser safe acetates and labels to save a couple of quid and knackered a £200 toner unit or a whole printer instead

    Happy days

    24 0 Reply
    1. Steve Graham
      Reply Icon

      Re: I remember when...

      "We had several that tried to use up the old non-laser safe acetates and labels to save a couple of quid and knackered a £200 toner unit or a whole printer instead."

      I once did that.

      7 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I remember when...

        In an LN03 if I remember...

        2 0 Reply
    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I remember when...

      "We had several more that would print, proof read, tippex out the errors then feed back in with wet tippex and reprint"

      I can't imagine anyone doing that twice. Apart from the wet tippex screwing with the printer, the paper shrinks slightly after passing through the fuser so reprinting the same document a second time leaves in interesting blurred effect. Unless the user was clever enough to only print the corrected text in just the right place. But if they were that clever, would they screw up in the first place?

      4 0 Reply
  7. Richard Gray 1

    Lost count...

    I've lost count of the number of times as a service engineer (North West England .. easy mate, my patch was John o' Groats down to Edinburgh, Aberdeen to Fort William and Oban.The muppets who did the planning never looked at how big the Perth or Inverness post code areas are... in the same area my arse! Bastards!) that I had a problem with paper feeding, taking the printer, turning it upside down and giving it a damn good shake...

    Paper clips, drawing pins, coins. how they ever managed to fit these things in there is a mystery.

    Pint for anyone who has had to suffer admin staff with no idea of geography and that 30 miles away does not always mean a 30 mile road trip, and you can't shouldn't go as fast on twist country roads as nice big roads in the more "civilized" areas. I did get offered much more coffee, cakes, biscuits etc than any of my colleagues from those areas though.

    42 0 Reply
    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Lost count...

      We have the same problem but in reverse. One of our people organised a 9am meeting in Croydon for one of our road warriors, followed by an 11am in Barnet. Because they're not that far apart on the map, so it'll only take an hour to drive across the middle of London. Not to mention the going round the M25 for a 9am meeting bit...

      It's a tricky thing arranging meetings. Seeing as you never quite know how far apart places really are unless you have experience of travelling there - and of course you never quite know how long the meetings will turn out to be.

      10 0 Reply
      1. Anonymous Custard
        Reply Icon
        Headmaster

        Re: Lost count...

        @Richard Gray - I take your highlands and raise you a Japanese HQ, where some of the minions think that "Europe" is one country where any location can be reached from any other in a matter of a couple of hours.

        Best one they tried was a morning appointment in Sicily and an afternoon one in Newcastle...

        39 0 Reply
        1. Yet Another Hierachial Anonynmous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Facepalm

          Re: Lost count...

          Japanese? Americans?

          I once worked for an American company in the UK. Wasn't unusual to get a call from stateside to someone in the UK along the lines of "I'm trying to get hold of Hermen in the Berlin office but he's not answering - do you know if he is in today?"

          20 0 Reply
          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Lost count...

            "I'm trying to get hold of Hermen in the Berlin office but he's not answering - do you know if he is in today?"

            It's been known to work the other way round.

            UK to relative in Vancouver: "Our daughter's going to Quebec. Can you meet her"

            Relative in Vancouver to UK. "You meet her. You're closer."

            7 0 Reply
            1. jake Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: Lost count...

              A friend of mine's Wife was absolutely certain that the City of London was south of where they lived, because "my Uncle lives in South Kensington, which is near London" ... Their abode? Croydon.

              3 1 Reply
          2. Diogenes
            Reply Icon

            Re: Lost count...

            In the 80s Had an IBM road warrior hire a car in expectation of driving to Ayers Rock to see the sunset after he finished with us in Sydney.

            He thought we were pulling his leg until an NRMA strip map was produced.

            3 0 Reply
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Lost count...

          English Electric Lightning two-seater, ferry tanks, refuel in Milan, Brussels...?

          33 0 Reply
          1. Anonymous Custard
            Reply Icon
            Trollface

            Re: Lost count...

            Whilst my zen for creative accountancy on expenses and travel requests may be fairly advanced, I think even I might struggle to get approval on that one.

            Although it would be fun trying, and even more so if it succeeded.

            8 0 Reply
        3. Warm Braw
          Reply Icon

          Re: Lost count...

          I take your highlands and raise you a Japanese HQ

          I once had a phone call from a London-based recruitment agent regarding a job in Manchester which he believed to be only a short commute from Newcastle. The grid lines apparently converge just north of Watford...

          10 0 Reply
          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Lost count...

            I raise you the oil industry

            HQ in Aberdeen, I live in Vancouver.

            Since I'm in Canada can I pop over to Halifax NS to look at a problem on a boat?

            15 0 Reply
          2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge
            Reply Icon

            Re: Lost count...

            London-based recruitment agent regarding a job in Manchester which he believed to be only a short commute from Newcastle

            I *still* get calls from contract agencies asking if I'm avalable for a high-profile contract in London. This is despite the fact that I stopped contracting in 1998 and all the agencies I used before had been told that under no circumstances would I consider a contract more than 20 miles from my house in Wiltshire..

            In short. recruitment agencies, in the main, are only just above insurance salesmen in the ethics stakes.

            16 0 Reply
            1. Jos V
              Reply Icon

              Re: Lost count...

              Oh boy. HQ in Tel-Aviv.. Could I please fly out for a meeting in Sydney planned for the next morning, as "I'm in the country next to it". I wished sometimes HQ owned a globe (Jakarta-Sydney is about the same as London-NY).

              Of course it didn't beat the rush job in Seattle that needed attention, while working in Melbourne, subsequently changed to LA, then Dallas (all east-bound), with a flight back to Melbourne through Dublin and Amsterdam.

              Round-the-world trips are sooo romantic and adventurous :-)

              (I have some news for you flat-Earthers around there)

              16 0 Reply
            2. David Nash Silver badge
              Reply Icon
              Stop

              Re: Lost count...

              Let's not get started on recruitment agents. That's a whole Friday afternoon gone and too OT for this page!

              8 0 Reply
            3. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Lost count...

              "In short. recruitment agencies, in the main, are only just above insurance salesmen in the ethics stakes."

              I was puzzled as to why recruiters kept contacting me about jobs as a waiter, until I realized that they were finding the word "server" in my CV. I don't know if that was really a question of ethics, but it sure raised questions about their level of competence.

              10 0 Reply
            4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: Lost count...

              "In short. recruitment agencies, in the main, are only just above insurance salesmen in the ethics stakes."

              In the sort of circumstance you describe I don't think they get as far as ethics stakes. They need to tackle competence first. Including the one who sent me someone else's contract. Same name, different skill set.

              7 0 Reply
            5. Alan Brown Silver badge
              Reply Icon

              Re: Lost count...

              "I *still* get calls from contract agencies asking if I'm avalable for a high-profile contract in London."

              Quote them 7 figures and see if they're still interested.

              2 0 Reply
              1. jake Silver badge
                Reply Icon

                Re: Lost count...

                40 years ago, my brother bought a house in Ukiah, California. Somehow, he managed to keep the telephone number that the prior owner had owned ... something about limited numbers at the exchange. To this day, he gets occasional snail-mail advertising and telephone calls addressed to the original owner.

                2 1 Reply
        4. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Lost count...

          morning appointment in Sicily and an afternoon one in Newcastle

          Not a problem is they can lay on a nice fast executive jet to get you from one to the other. With an appropriate level of consumables[1] in the in-flight fridge of course.

          [1] Something to take away the culture shock of going from Sicily to Nooky. Fine single malts should do the trick.

          9 0 Reply
        5. Robert Carnegie Silver badge
          Reply Icon

          Re: Lost count...

          This and previous: which Newcastle?

          I've told this not-quite-a-story recently: we considered travelling from Glasgow, Scotland, to attend a demonstration of new software, advertised in Newcastle. Newcastle upon Tyne isn't too far to go from here. But, depending on what you're going to see, Newcastle under Lyme may be.

          6 0 Reply
          1. Colabroad
            Reply Icon

            Re: Lost count...

            I still get emails from Reed offering me IT jobs in the Cleckhuddersfax and Leedsford area, even a couple of WhatsApp calls.

            The offer tends to get withdrawn once I ask if the travel allowance covers transatlantic flights.

            4 0 Reply

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