I’m cheap. If low-priced junk will do the job, that’s what I’m buying. Further, if I can find it below retail, that’s where I’m going.
With each newer system I get, it’s harder and harder to make my old Panasonic dot-matrix printers work. It has gotten to the point it just won’t work on this system. I guess I’ll have to find something obsolete but still working and run DOS or Win3.1 so I can just use my old DOS office suite for the old printer. It’s designed for high volume output, so it’ll be reserved for that use.
Meanwhile, I do print stuff now and then, so I went looking for something more recent. Because there are so many thrift stores in my area, that’s the first place I looked. That’s where I found the old dot-matrix printers in the first place. Low and behold, some store had donated a floor model Brother MFC-440CN. You could tell it was still new by the lack of scratches, fingerprints, etc. Now, I really don’t like this all-in-one stuff, but my wife does. Since it was only about $35, I felt it would be worth it, and let her have it. Sure enough, it works and she’s happy as a lark. It needs cartridge refills, but we expected that. I got the old HP DeskJet-5440, which is just dandy for me.
We’ll be stocking up on ink and paper, because we expect things to get a little rough before summer, with the US economy tanking pretty hard. Now is the time for preparation.
