Apple Aiming to Eliminate Printer Drivers

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]pbrigido[/nom]I think it would be great if drivers were embeded in a flash based storage chip on a device itself. Having a NIC (or any other add-in card) with built in drivers that were installed automatically would be a neat feature. It would save space on your OS disk and reduce the need to go and find an obscure driver from the manufacturers website. Instead of Windows searching online for drivers, it just pulls them from the device itself.[/citation]

My HP wireless laser printer I bought a year ago has this exact thing in it. The first time you want to use it you have to plug in and it installs itself and configures for the wireless network. If you have Win7 it will do all of this directly over the wireless... pretty awesome

 

[Guest]

Wouldn't submit comment: K-zon

Printers vary of interest more times then not, but of one thing if you buy even say a cheaper computer, they can get more expensive then what you bought for even its use.

Most people or at least some more then few then not, probably got a computer for the bases of a printer. For alot of printing needs a 1k computer probably isnt even close at times for the interest. But might find having a 1k computer of just interest for a printer.

For the difference you could probably get a nice printer with multi-function and etc. With ink and paper.

 

[alidan]

with a printer, all i want is 1 standard that works, printing is so basic that drivers shouldn't be needed.

a file should be sent to printer, and with instructions on how to print, and printer prints it based off that.

what is the point of the driver any more?

 

[alextheblue]

[citation][nom]pbrigido[/nom]I think it would be great if drivers were embeded in a flash based storage chip on a device itself. Having a NIC (or any other add-in card) with built in drivers that were installed automatically would be a neat feature. It would save space on your OS disk and reduce the need to go and find an obscure driver from the manufacturers website. Instead of Windows searching online for drivers, it just pulls them from the device itself.[/citation]That's like installing graphics card drivers off the CD. You end up with outdated, possibly buggy drivers. It gets even worse if you're using a newer OS or a less common OS. Why NOT just download drivers, its pretty painless these days (usually can be done automagically). You don't even need to manually specify a port anymore.

The only annoying part with printers is shoddy firmware on some units needing to be updated once or twice. But what you're suggesting wouldn't really eliminate the need for that, in those cases.[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]Eliminating print drivers is easy. You just make printers smart (many are already), and make them all take the same high level commands and handle them internally however they please. Provided your high level commands address all needs, which has been done, then all printers can look exactly the same from the perspective of the OS, making a printer driver unnecessary.[/citation]All you're doing there is basically moving the drivers out of the OS and into the hardware. Basically making the firmware into a monstrosity. Also whenever you need to update the driver to fix a bug or add support for something new, you have to flash the hardware. Brilliant! Especially for wireless printers! rolleyes.exe

 

[jsc]

[citation][nom]zak_mckraken[/nom]I'd take it a step further and eliminate printers altogether.[/citation]
I remember back in the '70's, Xerox was pushing the "paperless office" (basically networked micros tied to a server). Shortly after, they introduced the high speed copying machine.

 

[eddieroolz]

A universal printer (driver) would certainly be nice. I hate having to install proprietary ones.

 

[pbrigido]

[citation][nom]alextheblue[/nom]That's like installing graphics card drivers off the CD. You end up with outdated, possibly buggy drivers. It gets even worse if you're using a newer OS or a less common OS. Why NOT just download drivers, its pretty painless these days (usually can be done automagically). You don't even need to manually specify a port anymore.The only annoying part with printers is shoddy firmware on some units needing to be updated once or twice. But what you're suggesting wouldn't really eliminate the need for that, in those cases.

That's true, but what it would do is get you a baseline setup, and the user obviously has the option to update the drivers if they so choose. From some of the people I help with computers, they wouldn't know an updated driver from and outdated one.
All you're doing there is basically moving the drivers out of the OS and into the hardware. Basically making the firmware into a monstrosity. Also whenever you need to update the driver to fix a bug or add support for something new, you have to flash the hardware. Brilliant! Especially for wireless printers! rolleyes.exe[/citation]

 

[secretxax]

[citation][nom]pbrigido[/nom]I think it would be great if drivers were embeded in a flash based storage chip on a device itself. Having a NIC (or any other add-in card) with built in drivers that were installed automatically would be a neat feature. It would save space on your OS disk and reduce the need to go and find an obscure driver from the manufacturers website. Instead of Windows searching online for drivers, it just pulls them from the device itself.[/citation]

Maybe you should make a Patent for that?

 

[secretxax]

[citation][nom]sunflier[/nom]I'd be happier with inkless printers.[/citation]

There are. They're called Laser Printers. Instead of liquid ink, they use a powder-like substance. Unfortunately, these "ink cartridges" can't be refilled, you gotta buy a new one every time it gets empty. But on the positive side, they DO print much faster & have much better quality. The downside is that they do cost more up front, but overall in the long-run, you'll save more (since they can print HUGE quantities before running out of ink)!

 

[psycho sykes]

[citation][nom]psycho sykes[/nom]Can't they just put in some sort of a flash drive that contains the driver of the printer installed?I've always wondered about that... On a side note: has anyone heard about the new crystal storage by some British inventors? I can't find any information but some low-level article on a non-tech website... I'd really appreciate it.[/citation]
I didn't notice that someone else had posted the same idea, no need to get mad.
I actually had this idea a long time ago (since I was 12) which means that thousands have had it sometime, which also means that there are many technical and economical problems that we don't know about that render this method impractical.

 

[NoCaDrummer]

[citation][nom]pbrigido[/nom]I think it would be great if drivers were embeded in a flash based storage chip on a device itself. Having a NIC (or any other add-in card) with built in drivers that were installed automatically would be a neat feature. It would save space on your OS disk and reduce the need to go and find an obscure driver from the manufacturers website. Instead of Windows searching online for drivers, it just pulls them from the device itself.[/citation]
Yeah, that works... considering that Microsoft is now changing the OS faster than some offices are changing printers. (We still have perfectly good printers that were new when Windows 95 came out.)
And what about NON-Microsoft OSes? Oh, yeah... forgot about that... Most do just fine with standard postscript drivers, so there's probably no need to go hunting for some obscure (or even defective) driver.

 

[DSpider]

I remember installing a driver for a HP multifunctional which, apparently, needed more than 400 MB on drive C: ... That was a horrible experience. It installed crap I really didn't want or need (like image viewers, slideshow creators and other crapware) when the entire driver COULD NOT take up more than 10 MB, I'm sure of it. Icons, image tutorials and all.

This multifunctional was bought in 2006 or so, before they started encrypting the ink cartridges. Who knows what other crap they put into them nowadays... Jesus. Just embed the driver in the printer itself and have a universal downloadable thin application that lets you know when (and if) a new driver is available! Perhaps embedded in the OS itself, which is what I think they're trying to do and I applaud then for doing so. Then maybe "other" software vendors will start to pick up on it and copy them as usual.

 

[11796pcs]

Anyone else tired of just reading constant stories about patents? Yeah me too. This is interesting though because HP printer drivers are a pain in the ***.