René's old blog

My HP LaserJet IIIP died suddenly

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by

René Seindal
in

I had an old very old HP LaserJet IIIP which has served me quite well, but yesterday it wouldn’t turn on. No lights, no fan, nothing. As dead as a Norwegian parrot!

It might have blown a fuse or lost the power supply, I don’t know.

Technical manuals for this kind of printer is hard to find, and in any case they’re not online. I’d have to buy it, and I’m not really in the mood to throw money after such an old beast.

I guess it is time to look for something newer. A native PostScript colour laser printer would be nice, preferrably silent and cost effective. Something like the HP Color LaserJet 2500 would be very nice indeed.

Comments

5 responses to “My HP LaserJet IIIP died suddenly”

  1. Jeff avatar
    Jeff

    I had one of those IIIP’s for years! I finally tossed it about a year and a half ago, but I’ll tell you, it was sturdy as a rock, and was great for printing text. I kinda miss mine now 🙁

    Reply
  2. Dean avatar
    Dean

    Last year, after at least ten years of devotedly reliable service from our IIIP we succumbed to the temptations dangled before us by a stylishly compact HP ink-jet color printer-fax-scanner combo at our local office suply superstore. And we love having the color option, as well as its other talents, but have never been able bring ourselves to part with our IIIP, and find ourselves using it regularly as well.

    Reply
  3. Maijk avatar
    Maijk

    I use an HP IIIP

    Old is good 🙂

    Reply
  4. Adam avatar
    Adam

    If any of you whom have gotten rid of your 3p or it died and you still have the software can i have it

    Reply
  5. Josh avatar
    Josh

    [Please note I was sold a bad ver of kernel 2.4.6, and had to remove it]

    My HP LJ IIIP:

    Purchased it June ’05 at a consignment [thrift] store for $1.98 US. 😀

    It’s missing the led cover, power cable, parallel cable, front multi-purpose paper tray, bottom paper tray, and it has a 70K page count [someone had fun w/ it.]

    I have a spare parallel & power cable, and I was able to work around the missing paper trays. Running XP Pro, it already has the drivers for use. I had it printing test pages and documents after about an hour. Neat!

    Then, in Jul. ’05, I shattered my pelvis in a horrible car accident. When I came home from the hospital, it no longer worked and gave an error messsage. My relatives were using my apt while they cared for me, and I know one of them damaged it, unintentionally of course.

    Now that I have time, I am repairing it. It says “Error code: 50”. 90% of the time this means a bad fuser, which isnt hard to replace. I have purchased a used multi-tray, and after I replace the fuser w/ a new-in-box fuser i found on eBay, I will be printing in no time. 😀

    I do so love vintage technology, Just check out my chrome Oster Kitchen Center from 1980.

    Email me w/ stories and/or comments!!

    Reply

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