No poster for you. Next!

Today I was trying to print a poster for the ACS meeting in Philadelphia and I learned a couple of things about how the HP DesignJet 600ps handles errors.

First of all, the department has a lousy print queue for this shared machine. It's connected (via the network) to a Windows machine and shared via Windows Printer Sharing. It requires a username/password so that users can be billed. However, it does not work with Apple machines even though a large fraction of the users have them. Also, there is no way to see if a job has been queued or check your status in the queue or cancel a pending job. It is truly fire-and-forget.

Anyway, I queued my print job at 11:30 AM and waited four hours for my turn. The printer ran out of paper about three inches from the end of my poster. Damn. The printer was fed a new roll of paper and began reprinting the job. However, after about four inches, it stopped mid-stroke and spit out the sliver of poster. I don't get it.

I waited another four hours in the queue for a second copy. Again, only inches from the end, the printer ran out of magenta ink. Instead of prompting me for ink and waiting for a fresh cartridge, the printer spat out my incomplete poster. How is that in any way appropriate?

By this time it was 8:30 PM and there was no way to get into the supplies cabinet so I went home. Fortunately, I have an old version of the poster than I can take with me. I'm guessing that when I get back from Philadelphia a pristine copy of my poster and bills for three posters will be waiting for me.