I bought a 25-year-old printer & regret EVERYTHING

[inky jazz tunes play] [computer buzzes, beeps]

[box plonks down, slides]

- Greetings, uh [trepidatious chuckling]

I might have just made a huge mistake!

I've bought an inkjet printer.

Not just any inkjet,

a Canon inkjet from 25 years ago.

"Small size. Big printing performance."

Just what you want

in your BJC-2000 Color Bubble Jet Printer from 1999.

Yeah, this is like I said, a quarter century old.

It's silly to even buy a color ink jet printer nowadays

because it's pretty much a ripoff, especially with ink.

But to get one from the late '90s,

I don't know what I was thinking.

I just kinda can't help myself. [laughs]

I see the "right" type of listing on eBay sometimes

and just like, yeah, it's in the box.

Supposedly it worked or it's in decent-ish condition.

The seller had never used it, at least.

I don't know if I'd call it new,

but decently intact inside.

I mean, I really just wanted to grab something like this

to have something to pair with my desktop computers

of the time period.

I have a lot of late '90s machines,

I do retrospectives on those

and I sometimes just want a fitting printer

to go alongside of it.

Well, I have a lot of dot matrix printers

and I have thermal printers

and I even have some other inkjets,

but they're either too new and don't look right

with older systems or USB only

and I want parallel or something's just broken and stupid

because they're printers. [laughs]

And you know, I don't expect this

to be a great one.

In fact, it seems like it probably isn't

from what I've looked up really briefly,

but I was trying to see if "Bubble Jet"

is any different than "inkjet"

or if it's just some Canon trademarked version of inkjet,

and that kind of seems like that's what it is.

But some other conflicting information online

and said, oh no, it is different.

And it led me to this video on YouTube from 2003.

That is just a delight.

It is so oddly narrated.

It's like The G-Man from Half-Life

is talking about color printing.

Take a listen to some of this.

- [Odd Narrator] "New Bubble Jet printer technology

aims for the ideal combination

of digital photo printing capabilities.

Enhanced photo image quality

and high speed printing performance.

Precise, smooth and natural realistic photo image quality.

Canon's new micro-fined droplet technology

positions the heaters directly

above the ink ejection opening."

[laughing]

- I've heard some odd sounding tech video narrations

but that's a special one.

Anyway, a bit of a gem there on YouTube.

Yeah, let's just see a little bit more

about this real quick,

dive into some context.

For that kind of thing,

I always start with some Google Books here

and there's a scan of "PC Magazine" November 2nd, 1999.

They have a personal printers review shootout

with all kinds of different options for different things.

And the BJC-2000 is all the way down there. [laughs]

At the low speed, low quality end.

You know, you got something like the BJC-6000

with its individual ink tanks

and higher quality, bleh.

And then we just keep on going,

eventually we'll get to our piece of crap BJ variant.

BJC-2000 is $70.

Text quality was excellent.

Photo quality, good.

Overall speed, poor, they give it a D reliability grade.

Well, at least it's not the very worst, the BJC-1000.

Here we go,

"BJC 1000 and 2000 offer virtually identical setup

and drivers

but the printers use different cartridges.

Both offer a choice among standard photo

and neon fluorescent inks."

I had never heard of that.

And yeah, I looked that up real quick, too,

and apparently fluorescent inks were a thing.

And maybe they still are, I don't know.

But black light affected inks you just print out,

it's pretty cool.

Remember those like, velvety felt blacklight posters

you'd get at Spencer's or whatever?

I used to love those.

Anyway, "It comes with Canon Creative."

Another reason I wanted to grab this,

not 'cause of that, specifically,

but I did have a version of that

and our computer we got in late 1997.

It was a Canon BJC...

I wanna say it was a 4300 maybe.

This kind of reminded me

of like a cheaper version of that.

Which on that note,

the ink cartridges for this were $22 for one color one

and $8.25 for a black one.

And you get about 44 pages per cartridge,

like 50 cents per page. Yeesh.

Then basically double that for inflation.

But this right here is another reason

I wanted to pick this up.

Canon also sells a scanning cartridge option for $19

to let the BJC-2000 in particular double as a scanner.

Something that they do mention right here on there.

"Instantly becomes a color sheetfed scanner"

with the optional IS-22 color image cartridge.

[box thunking]

And you know what?

I had to!

So yeah, this ink cartridge...

It's not an ink cartridge, it's a scanner cartridge.

And it basically...

Yeah it just goes, instead of doing ink,

it's looking at whatever you run through it

and then scanning one page at a time.

Which very much reminds me of the ImageWriter II

from Apple back in the day.

It was a dot matrix printer

and you could grab the Thunderscan module for that.

And I have that stuff, too.

I just haven't gotten around to setting that up yet.

I'll probably make that an Oddware video

cuz that seems even more unusual to have that in the '80s.

And another, really kind of the final reason

I wanted to grab this is because

you can still get the ink cartridges,

the BCI-21s very easily.

And I just grabbed these on, I think it was just Amazon.

They were just readily available in all kinds of places,

but that seemed to be the easiest and pretty affordable.

And yeah, BCI-21.

[cartridge clacking]

It's the same type of cartridge

that my old Canon used in 1997, 98.

I also found this amusing!

The press reviews weren't exactly glowing,

but my goodness, the customer reviews,

they're pretty much all negative.

So this person in April of 2000 said that

"a 100% rebate would not suffice,"

the worst printer they've ever seen.

So we're gonna open this up.

Try to set it up and see if it works.

[box and things rustling]

It actually has some original cartridges in here.

And that brings back memories, those exact stickers.

No way, I forgot about this.

[wrapper rustling]

Yeah, the ink cartridges holder.

That's nuts.

We had this on our desk from like late 1997

to probably 2007.

[trays clattering]

Some trays.

Sealed user's manual.

There's a lot of unused looking stuff in here.

Got a power cable.

[paper rustling]

"Extend your Canon service."

For all that's worth.

And there we go, Canon Creative Home.

Look at that.

Here's how to quick start the printer.

Plug it in and do stuff.

I don't know if this is parallel or USB. [laughs]

I don't remember.

I'm pretty sure it'd have to be parallel, right?

We've got Windows 3.1 drivers.

[bubble wrap unwrapping all bubbly-like]

Yeah, that does not look used.

Wow, so there's the parallel.

Have to go grab one of those cables

from the dungeon of cable storage.

But yeah, check that out.

That is a compact little thing, indeed.

[tape untaping]

Might be a piece of junk but...

feels special right now.

[printer clacking]

Nice.

[printer clacking]

Yeah. [laughs]

Well, isn't that just a delightful '90s thing?

Speaking purely aesthetically, of course.

You know what?

I'm gonna try the originals

just to see if somehow they hold up.

That would be incredible if they do.

Plus I think we have to get the little...

Yeah, the little storage cradle anyway outta here.

[plastic ripping]

Oh-ho-ho-hoo! [coughs]

Shouldn't have smelled that!

Hoo, that's gonna give me a bit of a head rush.

Oh my goodness.

The air, the aroma is extremely pungent.

So I mean that still looks very inky.

Eh, it might be alright, let me double check the manual.

Put it in there, na-nuh-nah...

"And press the blue lock lever down."

I remember there being a little...

Oh, I bet that's in the...

Hm!

...Sure.

[printer clacking]

Well, alright.

I am going to go and find a cable really quick

and get it plugged into a Windows 95 or 98 PC.

I don't know, we'll try 95 first.

See how that goes!

I'm oddly excited for a 25-year-old inkjet.

[jazz music fades]

[jazz intensifies, cable being freed]

Alright! That is a good sign.

"Congratulations on purchasing your printer."

"It only took you 25 years to install this."

All right! [claps]

Taking bets right now to see if this actually works.

Test page.

Alright, so it says cartridge is not in there correctly.

[printer door clunks open]

I mean...

Is there more to this?

Is there some other part we're missing?

"A BJ cartridge error has occurred.

Install it properly and close the front cover."

Well, that tells me nothing.

"Install it properly."

I mean there are other parts in here, right?

But it didn't...

It doesn't say anywhere

that I can find where to put these things.

[manual rustling]

Yeah, it straight up doesn't say anything

about putting these extra pieces in there.

Yeah, there's like springs and thangs poppin' outta here.

[springs pop out] Oh, what the heck?

I can see what's supposed to be happening,

but this piece won't go in there.

It's supposed to like go into a point and then snap.

It looks like it just...

Yeah, it's not going in far enough at all.

Like there's not enough space or something.

This spring.

Like it gets in there, sometimes it'll hold,

but it'll just, yeah, pop right through like that.

So I can't get the pressure to both get that on there

and then get this on top of it.

I went through the service manual.

It is not mentioned at all in here.

So I think maybe this is like

something was wrong from the factory.

Maybe this is a refurb or return unit or something.

But here's the issue,

this little piece with nothing else in place,

it will snap in there.

But you see how easy it comes off?

It'll hold in place with this

but it's not getting any pressure.

It's not really bringing it together when you add the spring

that it needs to pull everything together.

It just does not hold in place at all.

The hole is too worn

or like this part is just not holding in place.

I don't know, something is off

by just the tiniest little bit.

Yeah, it doesn't matter what I do to the spring.

This piece is not gonna hold in place.

It's too flimsy.

And yeah, I have looked it up

to see if there is a a 3D printable version of this.

I would just try that but no, haven't found that at all.

Haven't found really anything for this BJC-2000

or related printers.

And I don't have the skills or the will to do it myself.

[blows raspberry]

Yeah, every time, same stupid error message.

Which doesn't actually say what the error is.

"A problem has occurred, unplug it, plug it back in.

If not, send it to Canon."

I should...

...in a big [beeping] bag of [beep]!

[printer whirring]

What?

Well it actually started pulling in paper that time

and now it says an error again.

What is it? [laughs]

I wish it would tell me.

I'm trying one of these new carts.

I don't even know.

[printer whirring]

Wha-what? What?

No, don't do that!

[printer whirring] [cartridge thudding]

Take that out there, I don't even know.

It's doing it again.

It doesn't think it's closed but it is.

[printer clacking]

So basically I just start tweaking this little spring.

[printer clacking]

[printer whirring]

For whatever reason...

[printer whirring] That'll do it.

[printer whirring]

Nah it just says generic [beep] error.

That doesn't mean anything.

"Service call required."

[printer whirring] [exasperated sigh]

I wanted an authentic '90s printer experience.

[cartridge clanking around]

I guess I got it.

[explosion]

You know, I don't know what I expected. [chuckles]

Anyway, so this is like three weeks later.

Things have happened since then.

I kind of got desperate

and actually ordered another one of these.

Well not this one, a BJC-4000,

which is compatible with the same ink cartridges.

And guess what?

The problem inside is exactly the same on that one.

I didn't record it because honestly it was so frustrating.

It appeared just like a couple days later.

After recording the last sections

and I was just honestly pissed off.

So I threw that in the trash.

About to throw this in the trash,

or at least salvage it for parts.

And I did an even stupider thing.

I bought another one for some reason.

You know what?

This is literally the definition of insanity, I think.

In terms of doing the same crap over and over

and expecting or hoping for a different result.

But this one was "tested working."

Ehh!

I do know that it at least receives power

but that's it.

[printer whirs]

So yeah, if the past two BJC printers in the series

are any indication,

that problem is pretty annoyingly normal

with this lever not holding in place

due to that black piece of plastic

being pushed out by the spring.

This appears to be intact in this one for the moment.

Yeah, it feels loose.

It feels like it could pop off at any time

but for the moment it's holding in place

and it's already got its cradle in there.

I just need to hopefully just swap out those ink carts.

These are the new old stock ones

that the other one came with.

That I don't even know if they're good or not

but we'll see.

See, this is what the other one wasn't doing.

I mean it was doing it sometimes

when I cranked it in place,

but we'll see if this actually does what it's supposed to.

It at least goes in the spot that it's supposed to.

So it is detected in Windows 95

but so is the other one.

So, at least it's not throwing up any errors.

Let's just do "test print."

Yes, start printing.

[printer whirring]

[bemused chuckle]

What was that?

It didn't put up any errors that time

but it also didn't print anything.

[printer whirring]

[paper rustling]

Well perhaps the nozzles are just gross.

So let's try the head cleaning.

[printer whirring]

I don't know what that did

but let's just print a test file here.

Some plain text.

[printer whirring]

Yeah, it must just be gunked up or dirty

or the carts just don't have ink in 'em.

I mean, it's still pretty inky, you know.

Maybe we can try it in just black.

[printer whirring]

Nah, nothing at all.

[printer whirring]

Alright, let's just try these

actual newly-manufactured ones.

See how that goes.

If not, I guess I'll just have to try

and take that outta there without it breaking.

[printer whirring]

Straight up nothing.

[printer whirring]

Just gotta be a dirty head, right?

[exhales deeply]

Don't want to do this...

I feel like I'm taking the plutonium out of the DeLorean.

Okay, that doesn't look... great.

Yeah, look at that.

All this gunk and just...

Mm-hmm.

[light plasticky wiping]

[cartridge clacking]

Huh, okay.

Nozzle check pattern.

[printer whirring]

Nothing.

[printer whirring]

[exhales deeply]

It could just be like the little pads themselves

that soak up the ink inside there.

And I think if you add a little bit of water or something...

I'll look it up real quick.

But I think you can re moisturize.

I remember doing these kind of things back in the day,

especially years later, you know,

after having the printer for however long we had it

and stuff gets gunked up and dries out and all that.

You don't use it for a while.

[paper rustling]

[printer whirring]

Hey, there is a little bit of something there.

A little bit of something, just a little bit.

I bet if we just let it print a whole big page.

[printer whirring]

It's just these little bits of ink.

[printer whirring]

[paper rustling]

'Cause if we can just get the ink flowing out

of these cartridges,

I think we'd be alright.

It's wanting to print.

Despite its nature of... being junk.

All right, just using water.

Ooh, yeah, oh my goodness.

[laughs] All kinds of dry ink.

Yeah, all right.

That's clean. Much as I can, anyway,

without completely soaking the inside.

It could be dried up inside, too.

There's that little well that it goes into.

So if this doesn't work, I do somewhere...

Yeah.

This was from the one that was new-looking.

Maybe this has never been used, I don't think it has.

[printer clacking]

Nope.

[printer whirring]

So let's try this other magazine or whatever you call it.

[printer whirring]

This ink holster.

[cartridge clacking]

Oh man, nah, nothing.

So that is with the new one of these thingies.

And the actual new ink cartridges,

newly manufactured anyway.

[printer whirring]

Which should be the best case scenario

and it's just not doing anything.

We've removed all obstacles.

There's nothing down the bottom of there.

This is it, this is the whole thing.

It's definitely really inky though, right?

It's possible that this one that looked new, actually was,

and like I said, because it was missing those parts,

it seems like it was perhaps a refurb

or something that got returned 'cause it wasn't working

and then just put in in his box for, you know,

20 years and then sold to some sucker YouTuber

on eBay decades later.

I'm just gonna let this run through a bunch of tests.

This is just a full color, full page bitmap. [laughs]

Just dumping ink through there.

So it's either gonna clog like crazy

or it's eventually gonna come through.

Kind of a hail Mary or a hail Satan. [laughs]

Oh, little signs of life, inky life.

Yeah, like little bits of blue.

This right here is what I'm printing, by the way,

or attempting to.

It could be that only the blue portion of this is unclogged

and you kind of see in there there's like three little pads.

[printer whirring]

One for each of the color and then one over here for black.

All right, well we're getting some magenta

coming through there.

So we have blue and magenta or sign of magenta.

The yellow, I guess, isn't coming through at all.

Maybe the black as well

'cause this is supposed to be kind of spotted

with a black texture.

Again, compared to this image here.

Even if I do get it fixed,

this feels so flimsy and like prone to breaking,

failing, dying at any time.

Would it even be worth getting to work?

Because the idea is that I could get

a nice little printer set up for '90s machines

to leave it set up with them

and use them in different videos.

But I wouldn't even want to use this

even if it did work all the time.

So I don't know what I'm doing.

If anybody has a recommendation of like, [laughs]

I guess a laser printer from the '90s

with a nice '90s beige aesthetic

that's not an Apple one.

And you can actually get toner for it still.

In color, preferably, it's gotta be in color

'cause I have black and white printers.

A color laser from the '90s

you can still get supplies for, I don't know if that exists.

Yellow is certainly not dry.

I mean it's getting [laughs] my fingers yellow.

I mean all these are, you know they're moist.

[printer whirring]

[paper rustling]

Yeah, just not getting any yellow, not getting any black.

Yellow could understand.

But the black...

Nah that one's new and that is like flowing with ink.

[printer whirring]

[laughing]

So yeah, this is what the same cartridges

but the other holder again

just to make sure and...

Look at this.

Hard to see but there is the faintest of yellow

coming through on that one.

Just the faintest.

So ink is coming outta the cartridge.

It's straight up this thing that is the problem.

The BCI or the BC-21E.

[finger thudding]

[blows raspberry]

I mean I could like. [laughs]

I could try to find another one.

By the way, Bird Feed LGR live stream

is going each day over on the LGR Birds channel

and now features a nest cam and we've got a robin.

She just laid a blue egg. [laughs]

Anyway, I was gonna say

is even if I were to get new old stock ones

and there are plenty,

they all come pre-installed with ink cartridges

already in them.

I mean you saw how it was in the printer box.

New old stock, this is just how they were from the factory.

They had ink in them.

I haven't actually seen a new old stock

or unused just the the black magazine

the holder part on its own.

They all have ink in there already,

which means they're probably gonna be suffering

from the same issue of dried up ink.

Like, here's one but, you know, it's been used,

who knows if it actually works.

Do I want to spend $36 on this thing

that may or may not have the exact same issue as mine?

- The answer to that is heck no.

So I'm here in the 3D printer room

'cause it's already [laughs] smelling like fumes anyway.

And I'm going to try this old technique I found online.

I was just soaking it in isopropyl alcohol overnight.

I got nothing to lose at this point.

[machine whirring]

All right.

Let's see what that does. [laughs]

I don't know.

I don't know, who cares?

All right, a couple days later I just let them go overnight

and then kind of forgot about 'em.

That's what they've been drying off for another overnight.

But anyway, they are about as cleaned out

as I think they're going to get.

Let's try the slightly better condition one first.

[printer whirring]

I'm seeing blue again

[printer whirring]

And yeah [laughs] sign of magenta.

Same exact result as before.

No black, no yellow.

It's mostly the black that's concerning.

I will try this other color cartridge here

just to be sure, but...

And this is the one

I think we were only getting yellow out of.

[printer whirring]

Yeah, exact same results or lack of results.

I'm gonna go ahead

and say this one's pretty much just too gunked up to save.

I mean, you know,

I'll crack that one open just to see what's inside but...

[wrapper rustling]

Eh, this is both new inks here so...

[printer whirring]

[wrapper rustling]

[laughing]

We get even less color now.

Well now I just don't know.

Like maybe these new ones are bad.

Okay, these are the old ones.

Yeah, you can see the individual holes there

for black and your three colors.

[printer whirring]

Oh, are you kidding me?

[printer whirring]

Ah?

Wow.

All right, I mean we're still not getting yellow

but there's plenty of ink in them.

This is the black that wasn't working.

And this other one is now.

[paper rustling]

I am so confused and really annoyed

and kind of fed up with it at this point. [laughs]

It is...

You probably can't see it

but it's very clearly wet with yellow ink there.