25
Jun
“Why Can’t I Print?” The IT Question That Won’t Die.
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VienerX Technology Insights |
| There are so many things that can and do break in the world of IT. Devices get hacked, networks go down, emails can’t be logged into, the list goes on and on. The list has changed as well as technology itself has evolved. Some devices and systems require less maintenance than ever, others have become more problematic as they have become more complex. Despite all of this change, all the factors that can go wrong, one thing was our most asked question 20 years ago, is our most asked today, and probably will be our most asked 20 years from now. “Why can’t I print?” |
| A Brief History of Printing |
| Printing, the act of making something in a digital space and bringing it into our physical world, has been around almost as long as computers themselves. The first consumer facing computer-based printer hit the market in 1968 with the Japanese dot-matrix OKI Wiredot. In 1970, the US based Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was searching for a stable way to connect PCs to printers, which led it to partner with Brother Industries (the same Brother who still makes printers today) and the two developed the Parallel port, which printers almost exclusively ran off of until USB was developed in the late 90s. The dot-matrix era lasted all the way until the 1990s. |
| In the late 80s, the inkjet printer, which is still used today, hit the market and within 10 years, completely knocked dot-matrix out of the market. Around the same time period, wireless printers came onto the market and by 2010, half of all printers in the US were wireless. |
| Dot-Matrix printers, while known for reliability, had their fair share of issues. One of the biggest issues came baked into their design. Dot Matrix printers were, at the core level, typewriters. They printed using a series of small pins striking an ink-soaked fabric ribbon against the paper, much like a mechanized typewriter. |
| Because it relied so heavily on mechanical impact, the issues were entirely physical. Pins in the print head would frequently bend or snap, the ink ribbons would rapidly fade into illegibility, and the deafening, rhythmic screeech-clack-screeech of the machine was loud enough to give an entire office a headache. Furthermore, dot-matrix printers relied on continuous, tractor-feed paper, the kind with the holes on the sides. If those holes misaligned by even an inch, the printer would devour the paper, resulting in accordion-style jams. |
| The Evolution of the Headache |
| When inkjet and laser printers took over in the 90s, IT professionals breathed a collective sigh of relief, assuming the mechanical nightmares of the dot-matrix era were finally over. |
| We were wrong. So wrong. We didn’t solve the problems; we just traded mechanical issues for chemical and digital ones. Suddenly, tech support lines were flooded with a whole new set of terrors: |
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| The Wireless Illusion |
| By the 2010s, the tech industry promised a cord-free utopian future. “Go wireless!” the boxes screamed. But cutting the parallel and USB cords didn’t fix printing; it just removed the physical evidence of why it was broken. |
| Wireless printing introduced the world to the single most dreaded phrase in corporate history: “Printer: Offline.” Why is it offline? It is sitting three feet away from the router. The Wi-Fi light is solid blue. Your laptop is on the exact same network. Yet, due to a dropped data packet, a dynamic IP address change, a frozen print spooler, or a routine security update, your computer and your printer suddenly act like total strangers who have never met before. |
| Why the Question Won’t Die |
| At its core, “Why can’t I print?” remains the ultimate IT question because printing requires a perfect, flawless handshake between three completely different realms: software (the app and the OS), networking (the Wi-Fi, routers, and IP protocols), and physics/chemistry (the mechanical rollers, lasers, ink, and paper). |
| When you send an email or stream a video, data stays in the digital realm. But when you print, you are asking a digital file to materialize into physical reality. If just one link in that incredibly fragile, cross-realm chain breaks, the whole process grinds to a halt. |
| Computers have gotten incredibly smart, and networks have gotten incredibly fast, but until society completely gives up on paper, IT departments will be answering this exact same question for another 20 years. |
