upgrade!

Thanks to the enthusiasms of my oldest brother, my family used to be up on the latest technology. We had a home laser printer before anyone I knew (600 dpi, folks!), and a home network before we even really had an internet connection (anyone remember Juno?). So I've always assumed that somehow, by osmosis, I'm the kind of person who would have great computer peripherals.

I was in denial. I took a personal printer from my parents' house when I started graduate school, but I usually relied on the departmental printer/copier for larger tasks. Now that I've graduated but haven't yet begun my job, I finally decided it was time to replace this baby:

Yeah, I knew this HP Laserjet 5MP was old. But I still had toner, and though the printing was slow, the device still worked reliably. Only yesterday did I check Wikipedia to find out when this was manufactured: 1995. The year of Braveheart, the O.J. Simpson trial, Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill. I had intended to resell this printer on craigslist*, but I'm no longer sure that's a realistic option – perhaps as a collector's item?

So now I've upgraded to this beauty, the HP Laserjet 2100M, which was also languishing unused at my parents' house.

How exciting: it's newer! It works fine! It's faster than the other one! It's a great leap forward! And I just discovered that this printer was made in 1999. <sigh> We may not be cutting edge anymore, but at least I can say that we buy pretty durable devices...

*UPDATE (7 Aug. 2013): I sold the old printer! To a guy on craigslist! Who was looking specifically for a 5P/5MP to replace his current one, which was dying. Crazy world...