HOWTO break HP printer cartridge DRM

Cory Doctorow 11:27 pm Sat Feb 26, 2005

A reader writes, "The CoCo blog has uncovered two ways to keep HP from using its forced-obsolescence-for-profit 'empty' ink cartridge trick on you:"

1) Remove and reinsert the battery of the printer's memory chip

First, I disconnected the power and the printer cable, just to be sure. Then, I reached inside and carefully removed the battery. I waited for about an hour, and then reinserted the battery and plugged everything back in. Viola! I was able to make a copy. Tried printing — that worked too.

2) Preemptive: Change the parameters of the printer driver

Search for hp*.ini and edit the ones with the latest dates. If you configure the printer driver first, see below, the file date should read today.

In it there is a parameter something like pencheck. It is set to 0100. I think this is a boolean because I tried other values without effect. Set it to 0000 in the file and save the file and REBOOT.

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