It was time for more bells and whistles.

Woo boy, a little bit of everything they sold.
Mostly printers, copiers, and "biz hub" office routers but we were also the service dept. for Apple Care.
Remember 1-800-SOS-APPL? We were the ones who knocked on your door. :wiggle:
Even those crappy "print it" greeting cards in the big box stores. Imagine a dot matrix printer that used melted crayons for ink. I still have nightmares of working on them. :ROFLMAO:
I never worked on their actual photography gear (outside of the Navy).

I was hoping to hold out and either transfer up to Rochester to work in the R&D Dept. (which was really cool) or get qualled to work on MRI machines. But, Kodak became fixated on committing suicide for some really dumb reasons and we all got turned loose. :dizzy:
 
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OK! Glad to hear from a fellow copier tech who would blow his nose and nothing but black toner (please don't call it dry ink) coming out! Of course, that was before the "full color" Copier/printer/MFDS came out! Then rainbows came out! šŸ¤£

I worked on 3-M, Toshiba, Sharp, Cannon, Panasonic, and finally Ricoh America became the Parent Company and the only product line.
Basically, copiers, printers, fax, and later on, Networking.
 
Zippy, my Bro, I remember working with one of our Field Specialists on a problem child machine when my sinuses started burning.
I started to blow my nose and this really gross clay/jelly like stuff came out that looked like really old blood but was super thick.

It was toner resin. :LOL: A LOT of toner resin. :eek:

I hope you remember how to tie your corona wires. Neat corona wires means you're doing it right. :ernaehrung004::wavey:
Those things were a trip. There was no way to teach you how to do it right. You just had to figure it out on your own.
Kodak had some of their old-school in-house mid volume machines but most of our stuff was relabeled Minolta or Cannon gear.
I liked those Cannon machines.
I had a ton of weird experience from the Navy working on "Kalman Filters" from my Inertial gear.
Cannon was one of the few companies that also used Kalman Filters on their top-line mid-volume machines, what we called the Kodak "EK-95" series.
A Kalman Filter isn't an actual filter. Its a statistical modelling circuit that allow a machine to do real-time error correction.
They work great until someone does something dumb. On an EK-95 that meant doing a "sky shot" with the top feeder up and out of the way.
We had a ton of problems with that machine and it usually meant pulling the main circuit board and replacing it.

So, one fine day I've got another EK-95 that's throwing out all-black copies and started to wonder, does this thing run a Kalman Filter because it sure acts like it.
So, I call the Tech Bros. in Rochester. "I got another -95 throwing out black copies. Yeah, I KNOW the book procedure but there's GOTTA be a way to clear this out without pulling the board." "I'm listening.." the Pro from Rochester says, "what do you have in mind?" "Well, there's GOTTA be way to reset the filter back to when it was built, like on Day One.."

I hear some furious page flipping from his (Cannon) master service manual, the light bulb finally flickered ON. "OK, OK, I think I found it! Look on the bottom left corner of the main board. Is there a small momentary switch?" "Oh H#ll YEAH there is!!!! Should I push it?" "No, power down first THEN push it. Then power it back up.."

You could hear a pin drop because we're geeks and this is high drama in geek world. :geek:

"OK, nothing yet... It just recycled power...Its back up...hang on...and....I got a "Calibrate?" message on the front panel!!!"

Long story short, he took me out for beers and strippers the next time I was in Rochester. :p
That problem was costing Kodak and Cannon a ### ton of money in wasted main boards that were really just fine.

So, we're watching a lady pretend she's getting in a bath tub when he askes me, "How did you know?"
"I was engaged to an Inertial Nav platform that loved getting attention. It ran its own error correction BUT if the error was big enough it would lock up solid. It just smelled like the same problem". :geek:
 
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The only real bad "Skyshot" problem I had was a drunk idiot going into his workplace downtown San Francisco after midnight, raising the doc-feeder lid to one of the big
60 cpm machines and taking pics of his crotch parts. Damn miracle he didn't bust the glass! Of course it jammed up the fuser with plenty of evidence for his
boss the next morning when I went out to fix it! šŸ¤£
 
BTW, I was keeping my fingers crossed to work on those MRI machines. THAT was the ultimate Field Eng gig back in the 1990's.
Those things were (still are) down-right dangerous to work on and the pay reflected it. Our F.E. top earners at Kodak all worked on MRI machines and the way it happened was..

A)- You HAD to have a MINIMUM of ten years in the field and an excellent stack of job reviews.

B)- You had to be willing and able to travel. A messenger would show up at your house or at the hospital and hand you a pack of airline tickets plus a hotel and rental car reservation- where ever you were going.

C)- You didn't apply or request it. You were INVITED to join the crew. Just like the SR-71. :D
 
MrZippy said:
The only real bad "Skyshot" problem I had was a drunk idiot going into his workplace downtown San Francisco after midnight, raising the doc-feeder lid to one of the big
60 cpm machines and taking pics of his crotch parts. Damn miracle he didn't bust the glass! Of course it jammed up the fuser with plenty of evidence for his
boss the next morning when I went out to fix it! šŸ¤£
Click to expand...
Oh, I've got a ton of them. :ROFLMAO:
The best were ALWAYS the Apple Care calls.
Sometimes, the creepiest house in the town is the house with the quaint couple and the Mac on the table.

"Now, before I open these folders, is there anything in them I shouldn't see?"
"Could you wait in the hallway for a minute?"

Or, there was the underware house. Everyone in this house ONLY wore underwear.
I knock on the door. "Dad" shows up in tightey whiteys and a tee shirt. Just like "Jr" who's running around in the dining room. Its 2:30 in the afternoon.

"Ah, you want to reschedule and I'll show up when you're all ready?"

"Oh no! We're fine.."

(No, you aren't..)

But the BEST were the Junior Achievement calls. This is where I'M supposed to train the next Bill Gates. "Could you wait until my son/grandson/cousin/son-in-law shows up? He (or She) wants to learn how to do this stuff."
 
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One more Apple Care story. I've written this in the past, maybe it was here? :cautious:

Either way, its completely true. It was also a long time ago. :D

I've got a call to do a "yearly" under Apple Care on a Mac. Not a Power Mac, not a top-line machine by a long stretch.
The dude who opens the door looks pretty cool. Lots of L L Bean but he's not rolling in coin. Hair that's borderline shaggy. The icing on the cake is the large poster on his kitchen wall of J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Now, back in my mis-spent youth I was an acolyte of "Bob". More specifically, I was a fan of the Rev. Ivan Stang and I paid the ten bucks to become a Rev. in The Church Of The Sub-Genius. Those days were a long time ago but sometimes you've just got to give some back. So, his basic problem is that the battery died and his registry needs a re-boot. The good news, for him, is that this was one of those old Macs that were wide but short so you could park the monitor on top of it. They were also Modular. Very, VERY modular.

"Aw geez, Sir. I think your mother board has had it and the hard drive is looking bad."
"Aw, man. Do I need to junk it?"
"No, I've got the parts in my van and you're under Apple Care. Just give me some extra time."

So, I get to work. The old MB comes out and a new Power Mac board goes in. The old RAM goes out and about 4X as much goes in.
Same deal with the hard drive, its now faster and has a LOT more room. I even transferred all of his stuff from the old HD to the new one.

I get everything installed and cleaned up. I load a newer version of the OS and hand him the CD.
"Start it up and see what you think."
He does. "Holy cow! Its never run THIS good. Can I run multiple programs now?" "Try it." They run with no issues.
"How did it get so fast??" I just roll my eyes.

I get my stuff packed up and get ready to leave. "I don't get it, Mac does this now?" "No, but I do" and I give him the old sign of the SubGenuis as I'm walking out the door. For those who know it, you wiggle your index finger on your Adam's Apple and say "Aye aye aye aye". Its stupid, but its a stupid religion. :geek: And one us used to be a member.
 
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