I said "no more" to printer cartridges over a decade ago. I rarely print things, and when I do, it's usually black ink on white paper.
I was always running out of black ink, or, because of infrequent usage, my inkjet cartridge/head would be clogged. I was so sick of it. I just wanted to hit "print", and have the printer spit out the page - like I could at my employer.
What did my employer use?
A laser printer. So I started looking into it. The last time I had, such printers were still expensive, but they had come down in price. But even better, because of this, businesses and others were getting rid of their "old and slow" b/w laser printers and upgrading to faster color ones. I eventually found my first laser printer at a computer surplus outlet.
It was an HP Laserjet 6M - I paid $100.00 for it, but it didn't have a cartridge. It was a gamble, but I asked the place if I could return it if it didn't work, they said "sure".
I went to a local ink cartridge and printer ribbon store I knew about (they were an old-time fixture here, they even sold typewriter ribbons! Sadly, they no longer exist), and told them my dilemma - I needed a cartridge to test with, I didn't know if the printer worked. They gave me a mostly used cartridge from their refill pile, and told me to bring it back and they'd refill it for me if it worked! Grateful, I took it home and plugged it in.
It worked perfectly! I ran the self-test, and the printer only had about a 25000 page count - a baby! These old LaserJets are tanks, and that was a very low page count. I took the cartridge back, and got it refilled. Total score!
Some time went by, eventually I upgraded the memory to the max (8 MB using common SIMMs) and got the PostScript board for it (so now it is technically a 6MP). It still chugs away, prints when I want it to, I just have to keep feeding it paper - which is rare, because I don't print much.
I'm also only on my third cartridge; I can get them fairly cheap from multiple places, and still a lot of business use these tanks because they are so damn reliable. It isn't a fast printer, but I don't need this thing to spit out a book a minute, just a page here and there; I can wait.
One of the best computing purchases I ever made.
Years later I found a 5P at a Goodwill with the cartridge. I fired it up in the store, and it too had a very low page count (around 15K). Bought it for $25.00 and stuck it in my shop - I also bought the postscript board for it as well. My original intention was to use it for printing toner transfer PCB art, but costs for PCB fabbing have dropped low enough that it isn't really worth it. So I just keep it if and when my 6MP dies...
I figure I'll pass away long before these workhorses do.
I rescued a LaserJet 4L in the late 90s that was being thrown out for constantly grabbing multiple sheets and jamming. Gave it to my parents - with a thorough cleaning, it didn't grab or jam any more and gave them 10+ years of good service (might still be going even now, I dunno.)
