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Thanks for the reply.
(You're always welcome at a Wests).
For several years this 6500A Plus had a hand written sheet of A4 on top of it, requesting that nobody in the house, (just the 3 of us), should allow the device to update its software ...I did check, and the 6500A Plus. Bought in June 2011 for net £40, so I guess we've had value from it.
mespilus
A growing trend are printers that lock users out of non-original ink by firmware updates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31860131 (that's Brother, but apparently it applies to others).
The problem really is inkjets... the ink makes way too much money, so the companies are incentivised to try and take that money.
If you can find a small laser printer... this is far far better. Offices have successfully pressured prices of laser consumables to be pretty damn low (given the efficiency the same price point as ink will go significantly further).
The only problem with laser is that as they don't make as much on the consumables, they charge the true cost of the hardware (inkjet printers are subsidised by the ink).
If you've got the space and can stretch to a laser printer then the costs are very low over the long-term. I've had a laser printer for 12 years now, only replaced the black toner once, and the thing is still going fine (it's a full colour laser, and it's been used throughout my partner's PhD which meant sometimes printing a whole ream of A4 at a time)... the downside, my word it is a large device (I had a piece of furniture made to hide it!).