Charles Babbage's Analytic Engine was never fully designed because he had to keep tinkering with the Difference Engine (a more limited version) which he could never finish (nowadays several computer history museums have working models from his original specs) because the printer would never work properly. We commemorate this early milestone in computing today by having our printers never work also.

@spiritplumber mine does work just fine.

But I have a 20+ year old #Deskjet6122 that refuses to die because it would he succeeded by a Xerox WorkCentre....

@spiritplumber sometimes I pay homage to Babbage by never finishing my projects either

yes... homage... 

@dotjayne @spiritplumber Da Vinci would also be proud ๐Ÿฅฒ
@spiritplumber His Brother would have succeeded.
@spiritplumber The printer is literally one of the oldest computer peripherals, potentially older than the fucking keyboard, and we still haven't figured out a way to make it just work like everything else!
@spiritplumber
So you're saying that Babbage himself had a halting problem? ๐Ÿ˜‰
@spiritplumber
with the exception of these Brother network laser printers that just works. You know, the ones everyone does seem to have (except you, for sure... you're still stuck with the HP-I-want-a-new-cartridge-inkjet ๐Ÿ˜)
@ZeugmaFr I have a HL1440 with a parallel port. Still works. I've only had to open it up twice and it became 20 years old in February
@spiritplumber Good to know our four, soon to be five, broken printers are actually historical honours.

@spiritplumber So maintaining a legacy system meant he never got to work properly on the replacement.

I'm sure that hits right in the feels for many software developers.

@spiritplumber
Printers are the machine Tom Morello rages against.