[HN Gopher] Why Paper Jams Persist (2018)
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Why Paper Jams Persist (2018)
Author : kejaed
Score : 54 points
Date : 2021-11-25 13:13 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| TomMasz wrote:
| I worked at Xerox during this period and know and/or worked with
| all of the people in this article. Dealing with paper is a
| colossal PITA but it's why printers and copiers exist so you have
| no choice. Xerox's strategy of building platforms that could be
| scaled helped somewhat but paper can act differently at different
| speeds so it's not a guarantee that scaling won't bring new
| challenges.
|
| Many years ago I worked on a small 14 ppm machine that was
| intended for worldwide distribution. We spent considerable time
| testing in "hot/wet" environmental chambers because in Brazil,
| where Xerox had a large factory and sold domestically, people
| would set up copiers on the sidewalk and sell copying to
| passersby. Damp paper is very different than dry paper and we had
| to be robust against it.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Likewise I worked at a company whose business revolved around
| mail processing and high-speed paper handling. The problems
| caused by an ink that can dry fast enough to not smear when
| you're printing 200 pieces/minute drove a ridiculous amount of
| software design.
|
| OTOH, it was some of the most fun I've had at work.
| speeder wrote:
| Whoa! Never realised that was a thing, and I am thankful for
| you and your colleagues work.
|
| I am brazillian, and the reason we have those sidewalk copy
| shops is that a large amount of government bureaucracy (and we
| have a huge amount of these, according to the "ease to do
| business" there was years where we had the dubious honor of
| having most bureaucracy of all countries in the world) has
| paper copies of documents mandatory many government offices do
| not make copies for you but will happily tell you the nearby
| shops with Xerox machines (literally, here Xerox and
| photocopier is same thing).
|
| Even basic things like: open bank account, close bank account,
| get internet, or a new phone, require at least a Xerox copy of
| a bill in your name to prove you live nearby (yes, this
| sometimes result in circular reference, like power company
| wanting a power bill to start the contract).
|
| For more complex things like opening a company it is not rare
| to visit in person 5 different government offices taking with
| you 50+ pages of Xeroxed stuff (I know this from personal
| experience. Also closing a company is similarly nuts).
|
| So without these machines working perfectly we would all be
| screwed, sometimes a humid paper jam could mean you having to
| wait months to get a new appointment with government office to
| solve your problem. Or outright epic fines (for example if you
| needed copies to comply with regulations or taxes)
| gugagore wrote:
| >(literally, here Xerox and photocopier is same thing).
|
| In case it was missed, the word for "photocopy" is "xerox"
| (like often "kleenex" is the word for "tissue").
| [deleted]
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Long ago I worked support at an advertising firm and we had a
| _lot_ of color laser copiers with attached RIP engines for
| printing out not-quite proofs and whatnot. (Sidenote: Terrible
| software to have to support. FieryRIP can eat a bag of dicks. In
| general the RIP engines, which ran Win 2k I think...just never
| seemed to work right, I think lots of print queue issues, and
| calibration was a PITA?)
|
| Out of the middle of nowhere we suddenly started getting jams on
| the machines. It was like an infection.
|
| Turns out that some genius decided they'd save the company money
| (which it didn't need to do, it was rolling in dough) by
| switching to a cheaper paper. The new stuff ended up in the
| machines around the building in a seemingly random order.
|
| Xerox sent a tech out. He inspected and cleaned some rollers,
| then concluded that our paper sucked. Proved it by printing ~500
| pages on good paper he'd brought, and then using a ream of the
| old paper.
|
| If your laser printer is mis-feeding or jamming a lot, buy better
| paper.
|
| Also, humidity can be important. We had a "proof printer" room
| where the expensive color printers were that generated the actual
| "proofs" before stuff went off to get printed by the thousands-
| to-millions or shown to clients, and there was a household
| humidifier in the corner to keep things from getting too dry in
| the winter.
| eropple wrote:
| Paper quality is so huge - spending $4 more at Staples or
| whatever, amortized across 500 sheets, is a no-brainer even
| (especially) in a cheap home printer.
| fmajid wrote:
| Paper is an organic material and like all such, it is subject
| to variability machines don't always deal well with.
|
| I get this one on Subscribe and Save:
|
| https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000H9HMJ6/
|
| The 120gsm quality and surface finish is amazing compared to
| ordinary paper. I pay PS7 for a 500 page ream and it's well
| worth it.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Also, if you don't print a lot, buy paper in 500 sheet packs,
| even if buying a 2500 sheet box is cheaper.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Love the subject.
|
| Also had to chuckle, even though it is not the same thing,
| because it reminded me of the first time I experienced a paper
| avalanche. Several years into my adult life, somehow unprocessed
| papers and bills had stacked up so high that they went sliding
| into an avalanche, burying other stuff beneath them. It somehow
| felt like a milestone in life.
| azalemeth wrote:
| This article (published in 2018) really conveyed the joy of
| engineering. It also frankly made me want to buy Xerox for my
| next printer: I've noticed a huge amount of similarity between
| different brands and I would not be surprised at all if they have
| a large amount of "shared IP" if diagnosing a jam requires a team
| of high-end researchers like as described.
|
| Printing is an odd business. My grandmother was a typographer --
| a layout artist, in the days before desktop publishing -- and had
| a unique combination of artistic skills and highly technical
| ones. The fundamental tension between those two aspects, together
| with an ever-present focus on minimising cost, makes for a cut-
| throat marketplace of multi-domain experts. It's an art we should
| celebrate. I took great pleasure in printing my PhD thesis, and
| the person who did the book binding both noticed and appreciated
| it, and as a result used machines and processes developed in the
| late 19th century to artistically produce the 10 hardback copies
| I had to have made. It's a wonderful mix of craft and care and I
| think a very misunderstood industry.
|
| [DRM'd inkjet printers can go screw themselves, however]
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I always wondered how the bookbinder in town stayed in
| business, must be some arrangement with the university down the
| road requiring these hardcopies xD
| clmay wrote:
| Your grandmother was a _typesetter_ , not a typographer. The
| former lays out type on a page, the latter designs the
| typefaces themselves.
| jonsen wrote:
| In my language (Danish) a typesetter is called a typograph
| (typograf) and they do typography according to WP:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| this distinction may be related to computers putting
| typesetters out of the job, leaving just the font designers
| to claim the title "typographer" (just a hunch)
| azalemeth wrote:
| She called herself a typographer and a layout artist -- she
| had a qualification in typography and set the title font used
| for an obscure newspaper, the Antiques Trade Gazette, where
| she worked for many years. Although she's dead, I'd use the
| term that she did for describing her own job!
| tanelpoder wrote:
| Also, cats on printers.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| And then we can upload that video to YouTube
| dylan604 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QQdNbvSGok
|
| My 2 least favorite things about computers: fonts and printing.
| Even in 2021, printing still sucks. Sure, we've decided we want
| to print on so many different types of printing surfaces, that
| modern printer manufactures probably dream of the days only
| printing on white paper. Makes me wish for a laser printer with
| an option to use dot matrix fan folded style paper feed. At least
| you know it's going to pull straight.
| nradov wrote:
| Those exist
|
| https://www.pecoinc.com/products/mp/index.htm
| dylan604 wrote:
| The 90s called, and they want their tech back. Good gawd
| those are horrendeously large.Also, I think that page you
| linked might be from the 90s as well. Every link results in a
| 404. At least their 404 page has live links to get to current
| website. Any website that has a Request Quote instead of a
| listed price just means move along for me. I also saw no info
| on expendables like paper costs or toner costs. I just don't
| understand having so much basic information missing from a
| website. It's almost as if the companies like this are
| telling you "you don't want to do business with us".
|
| Thanks for the link though. At least I now know these exist,
| and I can one day be a hero in a meeting with this knowledge.
| sharikous wrote:
| Printing will probably suck more and more as we are moving away
| from paper.
|
| OSes like macOS had entire graphics stacks tailored for
| printing support (quartz uses pdf as its intermediate format).
| I bet newer OSes will provide much weaker support for printing
| gota wrote:
| https://archive.ph/SJlAS
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