I have a toolbox dedicated to repairing all electrical devices and the hammer is for HP Printers.
Canon Printers are at least somewhat useable by comparison, brother inkjets seem to be the most recommended, but HP? Nope, worthless scrap.
- Have to help your cousin who is the same age as you but somehow never learnt how to use a printer
I mean honestly this seems more like a curse of anybody that’s slightly technical or does it work. Doesn’t matter the age.
The truest meaning was achieved by posting this on shitjustworks.
parents understand how to use Facebook now. Never heard of Lemmy
kids understand how to use TikTok. Never heard of Lemmy
Pretty sure most of any generation have never heard of Lemmy
How young are the kids in question here? Did you get born knowing how to use a printer?
People didn’t have printers when I was born, I figured them out myself in my teens.
‘It’s always been second nature to me.’ -Jeremy Epson-Xerox
The kids aren’t alright.
Seriously.
On the one hand I know exactly what you mean and I agree to an extent. On the other I see hope in the youth. They value different things in a good way. For instance, in talking to my niece and nephews I’ve learned that being smart is considered cool now, which was most definitely the opposite when I was young.
I ❤️ copy machines
That first lick of a fresh toner cartridge always brightens up a gray day.
Doesn’t it darken your tongue though?
Too much time this year has been lost fixing random cups issues for people. Too much damn time!
- Need help from online forums to use the printer
When I was around 8, we had a printer that never seemed to work. One day, I somehow cast a spell that allowed it to print out a couple of colouring book sheets, but I had no idea how.
I couldn’t get it to work again, but my one-time success led my mum to believe that I understood the magicks that power printers, and she became frustrated at me for this. Fun fun fun
Like when you 'fix ’ a family members computer and Everytime it malfunctions after that it is your fault.
I’ve used computers recreationally for 35 years, professionally for 30.
I’ve never owned a printer.
I refuse to support equipment I don’t use.
I don’t understand how my 3D printer, which literally arrived as an unmarked box full of bits that I assembled myself while drunk and with no prior knowledge on Boxing Day (and it looks like it), works more reliably than my 2D printer that came fully assembled by professionals and supposedly is based on decades of established technology.
Richard Stallman literally started the Free Software Foundation over his frustrations with a printer
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt
Xerox gave the Artificial Intelligence Lab, where I worked, a laser printer, and this was a really handsome gift, because it was the first time anybody outside Xerox had a laser printer. And, you know, copiers jam, but there’s somebody there to fix them.
Well, we had an idea for how to deal with this problem. Change it so that whenever the printer gets a jam, the machine that runs the printer can […] tell the users who are waiting for printouts go fix the printer.
But at that point, we were completely stymied, because the software that ran that printer was not free software. It had come with the printer, and it was just a binary.
And then I heard that somebody at Carnegie Mellon University had a copy of that software. So I was visiting there later, so I went to his office and I said, “Hi, I’m from MIT. Could I have a copy of the printer source code?” And he said “No, I promised not to give you a copy.” He had signed a non-disclosure agreement.
Now, this was my first, direct encounter with a non-disclosure agreement, and it taught me an important lesson – […] non-disclosure agreements have victims. They’re not innocent. […]
(he goes on for a bit, but ultimately describes never accepting any software that requires signing an NDA ever, and then goes on to write his own unix)
And then I heard that somebody at Carnegie Mellon University had a copy of that software. So I was visiting there later, so I went to his office and I said, “Hi, I’m from MIT. Could I have a copy of the printer source code?” And he said “No, I promised not to give you a copy.” He had signed a non-disclosure agreement.
"this is it kids, this is the moment, right here, where all the madness starts… " time traveller viewing the birth of free & open source software
And now you can print from Linux without installing a driver from a cd
PC LOAD LETTER.
The paper cartridge (PC) needs to be loaded with letter sized paper.
It’s a command to get the paper cartridge and load letter sized paper in it.
C’mon people.
Oh, I get the reference.
I don’t have any kids. I’m free!!
Sweet spot. Never have to print anything.
I’m like you, though, I can’t afford them either so… Win-win?
Can’t afford the kids or the printers?
Both.
And I can’t even tell if it’s because printers have gotten worse or millennials are just the IT department forever.
As a Gen X person who also does occasional family tech support, printers have always been shit as far as I can tell.
Also I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a device made by HP that wasn’t trash in some way or another.
It’s because the kids don’t care enough to learn. Seriously.
This is a generalization, it does not include everyone.
It’s 100 % because you no longer need to understand how information technology works in order to use it.
So our parents didn’t know because the tech didn’t exist (or came late in their life), and our kids because they never needed to learn.
I work in an industry where we use computers all day and this is painfully clear. I grew up with a mouse in my hand, shortcuts are hardwired into my brain. Watching someone right click them slowly move the cursor to copy, then right click and slowly move to paste, then slowly navigate to formulas then click refresh is brutal. It literally takes them 3-4x as long as it takes me to do the same task.
On the bright side, I only work about 20 hours a week and still outperform them, so thanks I guess?
I was hella unemployed for a while, and the job centre asked me if I was good with computers. I replied “not really. I cab do a little HTML, and can sort of read JS and C++/C# but can’t really write anything with them” so they sent me on a course so I could brush up on my computer skills to improve my prospects of getting a job.
I spent my first lesson teaching everyone else what the difference between left click and right click was, and how the little arrow moves when you wiggle the mouse.
Gen X here and I memorized only 3 shortcuts: cut, copy, and paste
I’ve gotta have my Ctrl+T and Ctrl+N and of course my Ctrl+W. And you KNOW I’ve got my Ctrl+Shift versions of everything, naturally. Oh man, and my Windows+Tab, how could I forget you?
I can’t count the times Ctrl+Shift+T has saved my browsers sessions. Or when I close a tab and 5 seconds later think, wait I needed that one.
Also je youtube player controls. J, K, L, etc. Got so annoyed by the video player not responding to spacebar because the video wasn’t focused that I just stopped using the spacebar.
There’s a button on the side of my mouse dedicated to each of those shortcuts you just mentioned. 🤣
Youtube’s controls are stupid. Left and right skip 5 seconds forward and backward respectively, and up and down adjust the volume.
However, if you’ve recently adjusted the volume slider with the mouse, then left and right ALSO adjust volume, and can’t be used to skip forward/backward anymore until you unfocus the volume bar.
Yeah, those annoying people who need accessibility and navigate web pages via keyboard focus, they ruined YouTube controls for the rest of us.
Windows+V
Also win+space to switch from English to Japanese and back! And inside that, shift+caps to switch between kana and kanji, and romaji!
(I’m on Mint, but I changed the shortcuts to be Windows default because that’s what I’m used to. Still works great, sometimes I hamfist the wrong kanji in the sentence because I’m just not looking too closely, but I’ve seen native English speakers abuse the shit out of “your” and “there”.)
I definitely have a lot more I use, I just had an I Think You Should Leave sketch in my head and tried to do a shitty riff on it. 🤣
Oh, I guess there is a fourth one I’ve memorized. Win + L to lock the computer at work.
I have no idea what ctrl+ T, N, or W do.
New tab, new window and close tab/window in that order for Firefox.
Good ol’
C-w,M-w, andC-yYou sound like someone who frequently accidentally brings up the emoji keyboard when you’re trying to go to the end of the line here on Lemmy.
Alt-E, select copy, Alt-E, select paste.
It’s partially that. It’s also because printers do suck more now. Had an HP 5p in the 90s that was a workhorse, reliable as hell, and would simply print whatever you sent. period.
I feel like there was definitely a golden age for printers, because when I was a kid we had an Epson Stylus Color 800 that was literally Satan crammed into a shitty beige box, but my HP LaserJet from like 2012 is still going strong.
Fair enough, printers suck! Laser printers seem to be less of a racket than inkjets, but still…
I tried older HP PSC 1315 on Windows 11.
Windows 11: Cannot find drivers, use manufacturer’s website.
HP: Windows will automatically download drivers, no downloads are provided.Uuuh… thanks?
Soooooo… archive.org.
I have a great rule to promote self reliance. I’ll gladly help you, but if the answer is in the first 20 results on Google, it costs you 50 euro.
I only had one relative get angry, asking how he was supposed to know if it was. I told him to check, and he angrily said “well then I might as well do it myself”.
Exactly.
Those first 20 results in 2025:
- 1-4: AI slop
- 5: Reddit thread (no comments)
- 6: Reddit thread (comment including the solution has been deleted)
- 7-9: AI slop
- 10: Microsoft support forum (two pages of generic advice from support workers located in India who get paid a starvation wage)
- 11-12: stack exchange (both with poorly written questions followed by angry comments)
- 13: quora (nonsense mixed with stuff that somehow actually makes things worse???)
- 14: Wikipedia
- 15-17: AI slop
- 18: Reddit thread (only one comment “nvm figured it out”)
- 19: Arch Linux forum (links to Arch Wiki)
- 20: the actual solut… no wait, it’s also AI slop
18: Reddit thread (only one comment “nvm figured it out”)
“Who were you, DenverCoder9? What did you see?!”
You vastly overestimate the level of these questions. Think “how do I send photos on Whatsapp”.
Most of the stuff is accurately answered by the shitty AI most of the time.
20??? I’m pretty sure if you scroll down past 5 results you’re already in the top 1% of users doing so.
I thought this was about Gen X, rooky Gen X mistake, sorry, forgot we forgotten.
They don’t forget us when they are struggling with their computer…
Same
Today I had to teach two people from different generations, the difference between right and left click.
Did you mention the center wheel click? No? Probably for the best.
💀
Not just millennials… I’ve been family IT support since the late 80s. And not just printers. TVs, cable, VCRs, DVD players, BlueRay, stereos, home theater, networking, WiFi, smart appliances, laptops, tablets, phones, etc.
Not just millennials… I’ve been family IT support since the late 80s.
I mean, as a millennial I only missed that by a couple of years. I was already the most computer-literate person in the house when I was 7, in the early '90s.
Were you the only one who knew how to press the input button on the remote to switch devices?
Trick question: back then, we changed to channel 3 and turned on the device hooked up to the RF adapter.
Also, my parents struggle with changing inputs on the remote now. I’m not sure if they regressed in their old age or never knew to begin with, but either is plausible.
I feel like being competent in electronics can be so aggravating depending on how people treat you. I don’t even want to think about those giant tv/dvd/multi-disc changer set-ups with sound systems people had. Rip.
I have set up so many home theater systems over the years. And before things like HDMI-ARC or even toslink so it was always a pain to get everything plugged in and working. 14 remotes and a multifaceted spell you had to cast to get sound working. Man what a pain…
Oh yeah…I forgot about the basket of remotes.
Just think, once we all die off, no more printers.
We may just start charging for this ultra-specialized skill
The 3d printers are so cool though.
Sorry, no printers.
But I was so close to perfecting my 4d printer.
Thermodynamics says no.
It was just a Kickstarter grift that spritzed you with water and played the Back To The Future theme as it printed, anyway.
The responsibility of knowing how to use a printer skips a generation, much like male pattern baldness.
skips a generation, much like male pattern baldness.
TIL my grandpa made me color blind and balding, that dead sonofabitch
So, I’m reading two false claims, and I’ve got a long line of highly proficient bald family members to prove it
That’s actually two separate lines of male pattern baldness and two separate lines of printer proficiency alternating between each other.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Hopefully finally only one.single.protocol to simply move pdf to printer?
That’s been invented in the eighties, it’s called PostScript, which is a precursor to PDF. You sent a PostScript file to the printer, and the printer evaluated PostScript and printed the result. Except, with the spread of home printers, processing was moved into the drivers to eliminate costly electronics from printers.
But postscript is the document description, not the transport. And pdf now, because base pdf is simpler & more secure than postscript.
There are about a dotzen transport protocols in a printers settings.
