I bought a HP LaserJet 5 a VERY long time ago for a contract desktop publishing job. It cost me $1000, a substantial investment (given my salary at the time was $12,000). That printer was stolen when Charlotte Hayes was house sitting for us back when we lived on Duke Street, which means it was likely 2000.
HP had JUST stopped selling that model when it was stolen, which meant my insurance replaced it with a HP LaserJet 6 MP. I pulled it apart once lo those many years ago to replace a roller which had gotten sticky. Otherwise it’s been rock-solid.
But it’s finally dying. The exterior plastic has slowly degraded – anything with a plastic clip or hinge is broken. Most of the movable plastic exterior has cracked (to the point that a wooden block keeps the cover closed).
Every page now ghosts badly — the fuser has worn out. The case plastic is now so brittle there’s no way to disassemble and reassemble the printer.
10,322 pages isn’t that much in the grand scale of things, but it’s worked reliably for the past 22 years. Can’t ask for much more than that.