Kiev
In the decade I spent living in Moscow I marveled at how many Russian companies, government offices, banks, and other places of business continued to use dot-matrix printers long after the rest of the world had converted to laser models. Even in the late 1990s, a visit to a currency exchange or a pharmacy was like a journey back in time. One’s ears would perk up at the faintly familiar but almost forgotten zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz-ing sound of the printer head sliding back and forth across the machine-fed paper roll.
What explained this persistence of previous-generation technology? Was it a hangover of the Soviet-era practice of sticking with an old innovation long after the rest of the world had abandoned it? To this day rock stars swear by the sound of amplifiers powered by Russian-made vacuum tubes–a business everyone else gave up when the transistor came along. In prior decades a similar refusal to move on to the next step in man’s innovations kept Soviet factories churning out steam-powered locomotives long after almost every other nation had switched to diesel-powered railroad engines.
One day an astute colleague writing in one of the Moscow papers unraveled the mystery. The reason for the former Evil Empire’s clinging to the noisy, clumsy dot-matrix printer with its messy printer ribbons and tiny little paper dots from the edges of the sheets scattered about was precisely because they were noisy and clumsy.
A dot-matrix printer running is like an old Soviet factory. Everyone may be sitting around and talking on the phone trying to scam a way to make money on the side, and no one may actually be doing productive work, but all of the noise and clanking of machinery creates the illusion of activity. Work must be happening because, otherwise, why would there be so much commotion? Also, at the end of several seconds of zzzzz-ing and the ka-chunk, ka-chunk of the paper feeder, there is that most prized of all Soviet phenomena: a product. From all that zinging and jolted motion there is indeed proof that someone has been hard at it producing that receipt that tells you how many rubles you just received for your $100 note. Never mind that you will crumple it up and throw it away the instant you walk out the door.
In comparison a laser printer seemed too smooth, too elegant, too silent–too symbolic of the inhumane nature of capitalism. A piece of paper simply appears after what seems like no effort at all. Who cares that a laser printer is so cheap now it costs less than a dot-matrix machine did 12 years ago? It just does not seem natural in a country where it has been customary never to assign 10 people to do a job that 100 could do just as well.
Some forces of progress cannot be held back forever, though. In recent years the laser printer has finally crept into Russian and other former Soviet workplaces. The old dot-matrix machine–it seemed–was headed for Trotsky’s famous “dustbin of history,” never to be seen again.
But not so fast! An article in the September 26 Moscow Times suggests these pre-Pentium era dinosaurs may yet be saved from extinction. It suggests that all along the Russians–who have poisoned their rivers, seas, and lakes and who have some of the worst air quality in their major cities of any industrialized nation in the world–were cleverer than we thought. Somehow they knew that carbon monoxide, asbestos, chemical waste dumps, and Polonium-210 were as nothing compared with the real threat to human health: the silent but deadly killer known as the laser printer.
In Australia a study of laser printers conducted at Queensland University of Technology found that a quarter of the machines tested were “high particle emitters.” (The results of the study were published in a report in the American Chemical Society’s Environmental Science and Technology journal.) “Ultrafine particles [of toner] are of most concern because they can penetrate deep into the lungs where they can pose a significant health threat,” said professor Lidia Morawska, who conducted the study.
Russia, which still has the ability to return to the dot-matrix machine because there are so many of them around, may yet save its population. But, elsewhere in the world, where offices have known nothing but laser printers for many years? The consequences are grim to contemplate.
The study finds ultrafine particles to be as hazardous as inhaling cigarette smoke. (Hewlett-Packard and other manufacturers of laser printers mock these findings, but then they would, wouldn’t they?) These toner particles are not like the annoying, working-as-a-waitress-in-a-bar-ruined-my-skin second-hand smoke. This is the real McCoy. This is like smoking some of those filterless Camels that you were “brainwashed” into thinking were “cool” when you were only six years old–thanks to the sunglasses and scarf-wearing Old Joe Camel mascot. If the Huckabee campaign finds out about this, Hewlett-Packard may replace al Qaeda as public enemy number one.
The next steps are obvious, alas. Users of laser printers will be–just as cigar smokers like me are already–banned from all public life. No more laser printers in a closed space, a bar, an airport, or within 10 miles of a pregnant woman. Laser printer users will be ostracized and not allowed to print anything within 200 yards of the entrance to any public building, (except in enlightened jurisdictions like Montgomery County, Md., where they will be summarily sent off to re-education centers without benefit of due process).
Next, all laser printers will be required to undergo annual emissions testing and sport state and county inspections stickers. Then–well, that will be your problem.
Here in Ukraine where I live, I can stand out on the main street of my city breathing air so smoke-filled that you could cut it with a knife. I can read about the toxic chemical levels in fish in some local river being 20 times higher than the lethal dose for a sumo wrestler. But at least I can thank God I live in a country where people were wise enough not to be seduced by the technological wiles of the deadly laser printer.
Reuben F. Johnson writes frequently on Russian politics.
