ok, I know things have improved since the days of the dot matrix, wreck your head, noise but now they just sound whiney. I would like to see printers with in built mp3 players who automatically play a tune when the job begins.
also if the printer could scan the document or file name and attempt to match a song to it that would make me even happier. "return to sender" for a letter, "money for nothing" for an invoice, "paperback writer" for any document over 5 pages.-- etherman, Jun 09 2004 will it play The Jam? http://www.thejam.org/ [po, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] Xerox karaoke http://www.halfbake...dea/xerox_20karaokeaah, them were the days. [neilp, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] a concerning number of printer ideas [etherman].. I'll vote for this as long as there's a karaoke setting.-- neilp, Jun 09 2004 sitting near an overworked printer may not be good, i can see a useful addition of having sound files that play when the printer is out of paper, or jammed etc. would be even more useful if the sound got louder the longer the malfunction lasted.-- engineer1, Jun 09 2004 karaoke would be a blast, certainly should be added. And definatley the Jam would be on the play list as would 'Inky Pop' sorry that was lousy.-- etherman, Jun 09 2004 Sorry, fishy. I would rather hear the sound of a printer than someone else's choice of music.-- angel, Jun 09 2004 who said it was someone elses choice. when the print window comes up on ur pc you could make your choice there.-- etherman, Jun 09 2004 Only if it were my document being printed. Most of the time, it would not be. Hence, most of the time, it would be someone else's choice of music. Also, "the printer could scan the document or file name and attempt to match a song to it" tends to imply that the choice would not be mine.-- angel, Jun 09 2004 but angel, I'm not suggesting this would be a good office thing. that would obviously pisspeople off. what about your home computer or if you have your own work printer. also, you would input the tunes so whatever the printer matched it to, it would be a song you like.-- etherman, Jun 09 2004 Etherman i think this would have to be for a home printer as if the printer is shared you could end up sat near a random jukebox all day.
Hence my idea in an anno above to have it play warning noises rather than flash a small led that may not be visible from the computer that is sending the document.
This would have been handy whilst i was at uni and printing out reports and assignments that where 10 -20 pages long on a jam prone printer, nothing worse than leaving a PC or printer to do something whilst you do something else only to come back and find that it failed and all you have is a stupid little led to warn you.-- engineer1, Jun 09 2004 Fishy removed. Still not keen though.-- angel, Jun 09 2004 Have it play "A Simple Text File" by Man or Astro-Man?-- calum, Jun 09 2004 I like [engineer1]'s idea of the printer playing warning tunes: The Jam's 'Beat Surrender" when the paper gets stuck, or a tune from Little Shop Of Horrors 'Feed me Seamour' when it runs out of paper.
Marvelous.-- WYBloke, Jun 09 2004 what about Nelly: "its getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes"# when the 'warming up' message is on.-- etherman, Jun 09 2004 Dolly Parton anyone: "Working, 9 to 5; what a way to make a living!"-- etherman, Jun 14 2004 It'd need a HUGE variety of tracks, or I'd end up smashing it with an axe after the 300th play of "Microsoft's Barney sings I'm All Out Of Paper"-- david_scothern, Jun 14 2004 we'll I'm starting to come round to the idea that when you get the print control window on your pc, you are given the option of either playing a song on the printer list or selecting a song from your own mp3 / wav files.-- etherman, Jun 14 2004 Some printers over the years have already been equipped with sound capabilities, either by design or happenstance (impact printers could play interesting rhythms by feeding them the right stuff to print). I'm not sure that adding higher quality sound would accomplish much useful.-- supercat, Jun 14 2004 it's not useful. it's fun.-- etherman, Jun 15 2004 I don't know about this. In my opinion, the noises created by most printers have quite a funky rhythm. In fact, I usually print extra, useless copies to keep the rhythm going.-- spiritualized, Jun 15 2004 [spiritualized] not only is that enviromentally unfriendly, it is eversomentally unhinged.-- etherman, Jun 15 2004 Etherman, you'll be pleased to know that I only use recycled paper. The grain rubbing against the printer ribbon creates syncopation, so I dance even harder-- spiritualized, Jun 15 2004 well my printer would come with a strobe light a smoke machine too. big fish, little fish, big fish ....-- etherman, Jun 15 2004 Mine would look like Axel Rose, and it would smoke Pall Malls, the paper wouyld fly out of his ass, and the ink cartridges would be inserted next to the big vein in his elbow. "ahh, thats the stuff!", everytime you give it more ink.-- daseva, Jun 15 2004 Mildly off topic - I propose , for pure novel value, a small compartment on the side of a dot matrix printer that can be opened so that water can be poured into it.
Now while the page is printing, the printer starts boiling the water, and once the page has finished printing, the printer lets off all the steam through the printer tray along with the printed page, lending an air of mystique to an otherwise boring document.-- spiritualized, Jun 15 2004 random, halfbakery