DJ500 dead after >= 16 years.

[Gary Kline]

	Guys, I need some input about what kind of _new_ printer to buy
	for my desktops.  I'd like to hang the printer off my FBSD box;
	my Ubuntu platform is probably too far away. At least 3 meters.

	Circa '01 or '02 I figured my olden DJ500 had cost ~$45/year.
	Not counting the ink.  It kept chugging around until a month or
	so ago and by now  it really is worm out.  It makes it's old,
	clunking, grinding sounds when I power dowwn, but nothing when I
	boot up.  And a friend stopped by this afternoon and checked.
	Cabling is fine; printer has power.  None of the buttons respond;
	no  reset, no formfeed, nada.  Only two of the usual three LED's
	are lit, so it's probably broken, burn-out, or worn out wires
	somewhere.   

	The problem with buying New---and my wife is threatening me 
	if I buy some older, junker printer---the problem is getting any 
	of these printers that do everything but shine your shoes is:
	are there drivers to make them work with FreeBSD?  I don't care 
	about fax, or features like scanning and copying.   About the same 
	with color since most files are code or essays.

	Nutshell, I'd like anyone's ideas/experiences with some of these 
	new HP/<<< or whateverbrand>>> printers. I wouldn't *mind* if I
	could scan in text from a techy paper into HTML or PDF or text.
	But mostly, like 99.44%  plain black text.  My old deskjet used
	gs as a filter to print PostScript.  Do we have any such plugin
	support, or are printers still roll-your-own?  [FWIW, I can't
	seem to get CUPS working...  altho it maay be my misssing
	/dev/lpt0.]

	gary




-- 
  Gary Kline  kline at thought.org   www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
        http://jottings.thought.org   http://transfinite.thought.org