Eastbound

• Thermal Paper
• Thermal Paper Rolls
• POS Paper
• Printer Ribbons
• Plotter Paper
• Engineering Paper
• Thermal Fax Paper
• Epson Printer Ribbons
• Okidata Ribbons
• Colored Thermal Paper

A sheet of paper is a flimsy, almost insubstantial thing. It is flat, plain, and altogether unremarkable. Yet it the right hands it can be transformed into something very remarkable indeed.

Poets can transform a plain sheet of paper into a garden of images and emotions by covering it with their flowery script. Storytellers can make a sheet of paper into a dark adventure or a gripping tale of suspense so engrossing that the reader can’t wait to turn the page and see the next sheet of transformed paper even though to all appearances it is almost exactly the same as the one before it.

Artists can capture your personality with a single sheet of paper. A few strokes with the artist’s pencil reveals the subject’s essential character and preserves a moment in time for decades. The twinkle of a lover’s eye, an enigmatic smile, an air of lofty indifference can be caught and may endure on that plain sheet of paper long after the emotion has faded from the subject’s heart.

Children can create magic with paper, conjuring mythical beasts, legendary battles, and omnipotent heroes with a striking resemblance to Mom and Dad. They create worlds of imagination with the just 64 colors of a crayon box.

All of these decorative transformations leave the paper essentially as it was in terms of shape, but a different class of creators bends and cuts and reveals constructions and objects that were all along hidden within the paper. A few deft folds in less than a minute create a magnificent flying machine that slices through the air or traces graceful arcs before gliding back to earth ready for another flight of fancy.

A pair of scissors turns a sheet of snow white paper into snowflake as unique as the real thing. With a tiny bit of tape, paper snowflakes are suspended in the act of falling against the window pane for the entire season, until they are replaced by the crayon colored flowers and butterfly cut-outs that herald the spring.

The scientifically minded can transform a thin strip of paper into the paradoxical mobius strip with a twist and a bit of tape. With a pencil, they scribe complex equations and work to solve the eternal mysteries of the universe.

Engineers conceive and perfect devices and machines with their drawings and sketches that a hundred years ago would have been regarded as constructs of magic rather than applied science. Architects create castles, skyscrapers, and comfortable homes with blueprinted Paper designs.

Tiny cash register paper rolls capture and record every one of billions of commercial transactions that take place throughout the world each day.

Small companies and corporate empires alike are created with paper business plans that attract funding for their endeavors. The wealth of individuals and nations is represented by paper money that is transferred from hand to hand in exchange for the things we need to survive and live our lives according to the freedoms granted us on the simple sheets of aged parchment upon which our founding fathers built a nation.

• Thermal Paper Rolls
• POS Paper
• Thermal Printer Paper
• Printer Ribbons
• Plotter Paper
• Engineering Paper
• Thermal Fax Paper
• Epson Printer Ribbons
• Okidata Ribbons
• Colored Thermal Paper

In these days of modern gadgets and automated devices, product planners have to be careful about what features they include and which are best left on the drawing board. Sometimes the best intentions can lead to unintended consequences. Of course, often these unintended consequences only occur when human beings attempt to use the product in unintended ways.

Take, for example, the fax machine. It was a very useful device in its day. It enabled the nearly instantaneous transmission of documents around the world. These documents might be legal contracts, purchase orders, resumes, a simple memo, or the latest Dilbert cartoon – important business documents all. Fax machines reprinted these documents on special thermal paper which was purchase in a roll. In theory, thermal paper rolls led to more efficient use of paper since a short memo might only use several inches of paper instead of a full sheet. It was also intended to be more reliable in feeding the paper than single sheet feeders of the time.

Another handy feature of the fax machine was its ability to automatically resend the previous document if the transmission was cut off before the document was completed. That way the sender didn’t have to stand around and wait to make sure everything went through ok. All of these features sound great, and for the most part they worked as intended. Until a new hire with little office experience tried to fax a page from longer report without removing the staple.

In that not terribly uncommon situation, these features combined to wreak havoc across the country. Let me explain. Original documents were fed into the fax machine by rollers. These rollers smoothed out the sheet of paper and fed it past the scanning sensor. The sensor recorded the images as they scrolled past and reproduced them electronically to be reprinted at the receiving machine. That’s fine, but when a sheet with a staple in it is fed into a fax machine here’s what happens. The user knows that the machine will automatically resend if there’s a problem, so as soon as he dials the number, and the original starts to feed into the fax machine, he walks away and returns to his desk. Unfortunately, the staple is too thick to fit between the rollers. It gets stuck. However, the rollers keep right on turning even though the paper is no longer moving. Since the fax machine is ingeniously designed to accept originals of any length, and the fax never sees the end of the stuck sheet come through, it assume that this is one long, long document. The sensor scans dutifully the same line over and over and over. When this is transmitted and reprinted at the receiving end. The receiving fax machine dutifully unrolls the thermal paper and reprints the same image over and over and over resulting in solid black and white lines that run the length of the paper. Since the fax uses the thermal paper roll which may be some 300 feet in length, it keeps rolling out the paper and printing these illegible black lines – forever.

Of course, eventually someone at the receiving end of the transmission will notice the pile of thermal paper on the floor and will hang up on the transmission. The pull the paper off the machine and throw it away. Fortunately, the sending fax machine is smart enough to realize that the transmission was cut off prematurely. In about sixty seconds, it call again and resumes right where it left off – and another 100 feet of fax paper tangles itself across the fax room floor. A diligent employee on the receiving side, will eventually read the fax number and company name of the sender from the machine and call them. Usually, they’ll get the main reception desk and a call will go out for everyone in the company to check their fax machines.

It is only the precise grouping of all of these individual features working in combination with an idiot user that allows this particular set of unfortunate events to occur. That’s why product developers need to put their products through a battery of tests, not only designed by experts, but also as practiced by idiots. As a wise man once said, the reason that nothing is fool-proof is that fools are so damned ingenious.