What it takes to keep an old HP Laser Jet III printer alive.

My HP Laser Jet III is still kicking. Still it needs toner nourishment.

I found the HP original toner cartridges last the best with the highest reliability so I would pay the extra over the replacement and refurbished types. My printing usage is lower in the last few  years so my inventory of 3 cartridges took a bit to wind down.

At one time I used to print training manuals that would suck up the toner. Also the kids have past the age of printing web pages filled with toner draining photos of products and celebrities.

Still need to print an occasional snail mail letter, tax documents and an occasional  “worth the paper its printed on” posting on the web because it is easier read in a chair rather looking at a monitor.

Finally the last toner cartridge gave a warning. I found the Hp made cartridges will give a good signal when they are about to empty. You will see something imperfect in the printing. A good shake will put it right again. Still it is time to get another if you are out. I was thinking I had at least one more, so I searched the premises to come up with the  one in the printer was the last one.

So I went to Staples. The clerk said “An Hp Laser what?” in response to me asking about the HP Laser III. “Perhaps you can try the web site, he said?” I did and nothing.

I went to HP’s site and was dismayed  to find this at http://www.hp.com/sbso/product/supplies/obsolete.html:

HP discontinued the HP LaserJet 92275A, 92291A and 92295A Black Cartridges on November 1, 2006 and the HP LaserJet C3900A Black Print Cartridge on November 1, 2007.

Well the 92295A was my toner cartridge. Since November 1, 2006! Well why was I not notified? Goes to show you if you do not stock it, it will go out of date.

So I did some searching and found replacement toner cartridges. I had used them before but found they do not last well enough. Plus the prices were over $100 each!

So I checked eBay and found a plentiful supply of genuine in the box HP  92295A Black Cartridges available for prices less than USPS shipping by express camel.

So there you go. Its alive and breathing for a bit longer.  But with 92295A toner cartridge supply now becoming a world wide search, I feel I own a machine that is a bit like one requiring petroleum, eventually the supply will run out.

Yet I do not want to stock too many of these 92295A toner cartridge babies  because the HP Laser Jet III printer may give out beforehand.

Alonzo (Lon) Hosford

By Lon Hosford

Internet and Mobile Development Educator and Consultant Independent software developer with practical engineering project experience for clients such as AT&T, Avis, Bristol Myers Squibb, Ortho BioTech, Chanel, Avaya, Green Birdie Video, Aztec Learning Systems and Verizon Wireless. Lon is well known for translating client needs into useful applications. An interesting aspect of Lon's consulting work was the creation of industry jobs that did not exist before. That lead to hiring and training college students who were taught dead technologies at a time academia was woefully behind on the paradigm shifts in personal computing, the internet and today the distributed device environment often called mobile. Lon has taught thousands of students internet web development, animation and programming topics over two decades both privately and academically. He developed Multimedia Associated Degree program and courses for Raritan Valley Community College in the 1990s at a time when Macromedia Authorware and Director were tools. He is the founder, developer and educator for Raritan Valley Community College Web Developer Certification program also having its roots in the 1990s at the dawn of the internet. He also was a key curriculum developer and instructor for one of the Nation's first Web Developer Certification program offered through New Jersey Institute of Technology. Lon was also a technology instructor at the University of Phoenix Online. Lon over the years has produced educational video for topics including Paradox, Cobol, Java, Jasmine, C, C++, Linux, Flash, Cocos 2d and HTML. These courses were distributed and taught in Universities internationally when global was an emerging term.