Shoutout to the old plotter that finally died on me last Wednesday

That HP DesignJet 500 I inherited from a retiring drafter back in 2018 finally gave up the ghost mid-print on a set of commercial roof plans. Smoke came out and everything. It did 8 years of solid work for me, and I honestly felt a little sad throwing it in the truck for scrap. Anyone else get attached to a machine that was way past its prime?

2 comments

2 Comments

thea_knight1mo ago

Had a buddy whose old HP 731 plotter just stopped one day in the middle of plotting a subdivision plat. Thing literally started sparking and he had to unplug it from the wall. He said he left it sitting in the corner of his office for like two months before he could bring himself to haul it out. That machine had survived three office moves and a coffee spill that should have killed it years earlier.

tylermason1mo ago

That thing surviving a coffee spill is wild. You see it everywhere though, not just with old plotters. Some stuff just refuses to quit until it literally can't anymore. Like my grandpa's old Kenmore fridge from the 70s outlasted three dishwashers and two washing machines before the compressor finally gave out. Meanwhile, my friend's brand new smart fridge died within two years from a software glitch they couldn't fix. It's like the older stuff gets built with a different kind of stubbornness.