Bloat!

[HopperJF]

Just got a nice new XP system and installing the driver for my super and much loved Canon iP1200 printer, and noticed when I clicked on custom install, the driver alone is 100Mb!

How did something as simple as a printer driver get so big?

I recall drivers being able to fit on a floppy what has changed? They are doing the exact same thing right? Sure, printers are better these days, but what has that got to do with the size of the driver?

Just felt like a bit of a moan :-)

[Jeff]

That's pretty amazing. Your printer driver is about 15 times larger than a complete Amiga OS 3.1 installed and running:-D

Jeff

[monami]

if you can afford the ink you have nothing to moan about! :-D

[HopperJF]

Seriously though, this Canon is the best printer I've ever used, from a list which includes Epson, HP and Lexmark...

I'm just curious what is in that 100Mb when all it is really is telling the computer what printer it is.

I still have an Amiga printer disk here for the Citizen ABC printer, 1 floppy! And just a few years ago the driver for the Hewlett Packard 640C came on 3 floppies, which must have made it well under 10Mb in size.

It seems everything is just getting more and more overbloated, it's stupid. But I guess that is a sign of the times, and the Amiga way of doing things - small file size, fast, efficient, is now old-fashioned.

[adolescent]

If it's like my old i950 it comes with a couple extra utilities.  One for printing borderless pics, one to monitor the ink levels and paper thickness settings, etc.  Not a bad batch really.  I think the driver itself was about 12MB.

[meega]

HopperJF wrote:
... the driver alone is 100Mb!

100 Mega bits ? :-P

[bloodline]

100MB does seem a big... but remember that Printers now do far more than they ever did in the past. What the home user can produce now for a few pence, is better than what a professional company could produce for £££, 15 years ago!

Remember also, that print hardware is actually simpler than it was a few years ago... being little more than an USB interface attached to a couple of electric motors and a few valves in the ink cartridge! The Driver now has to control every aspect of the print process.

[motorollin]

That's nothing. The HP Printer software is over 300MB.

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moto