When was red ink invented?

Who invented the idea of ink refilling for printers?

• i need info on who or how ink refilling started as an industry. this is for my thesis.

• Answer:

  Someone who wanted to make money off of low quality ink. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, possibly several different people. However, here are a few things you may find helpful as far as ink-refilling goes in general: 1. It is NOT the same ink. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Cannon, Epson, etc have several patents on their respective inks (HP has Vivera inks, Canon has ChromaLife, and Epson has DuraBrite). Therefore, it is not legal for another manufacturer to produce the same ink. Anyone who says that the inks are the same are simply using deceptive sales tactics. OEM inks often have benefits that usually do not come with refilled-inks or remanufactured cartridges, such as photos that are water-proof and fade resistant for 100+ years (Epson, HP). Companies that sell refill kits or remanufactured cartridges are not trying to be heros. Rather, like any other business, they are trying to make a profit by selling low quality ink at a lower cost. 2. Refilled cartridges, in the long run, can actually be more expensive than OEM cartridges. This is for several reasons. First, a refilled cartridge or a remanufactured cartridge is highly unreliable. People often have trouble with cartridges leaking ink (unheard of in OEM cartridges), overall cartridge failure or unacceptable print quality (about 33% of the time; in contrast, HP cartridges fail only 2% of the time), or even dead-on-arrival cartridges. Also, when a cartridge has been refilled, it does not contain as much ink as the OEM cartridges would contain. And too, lower quality ink has a tendencey to dry up faster. Another reason costs could rise with refilled cartridges is because of printer malfunction. Many people have ruined printers by using non-OEM ink cartridges. Any problems caused by non-OEM ink cartridges will not be covered under the printer's warranty. Popular belief holds that non-OEM cartridges will automatically render the printer's warranty invalid. This is not true. Only problems caused directly by non-OEM ink are not covered by warranties. Nonetheless, if non-OEM inks ruin your printer, you will see a huge increase in overall cost. 3. The reason why refill-kits became so popular is because people hate paying too much money for ink. There is a better solution than using refilled-cartridges. When purchasing a printer, look at the printing costs with OEM cartridges. DO NOT simply look at the price of the cartridge. A cartridge may cost $10 but may hold very little ink. Another cartridge may cost $35, but will hold a bunch of ink. Here's how you deterine printing costs: Basically, it is (cost of cartridge) divided by (page yield of cartridge). For example: The HP 88XL cartridge costs $35. On HP.com, the estimated page yield (based on the black ink covering 5% of the page) is 2,250 pages. Thus, for $35 you can print about 2,250 pages. 35 divided by 2,250 will give you 1.5 cents per page printed. Color printing costs is measured the same way, only, it should be multiplied by the number of colors the printer uses. For example, let's say cost per page on a tri-color cartridge is 2.5 cents. Multiply 2.5 by the 3 colors and will get 7.5 cents per color page. If your page contains black ink also, don't forget to add that to the color costs. I hope all this helps. Here are a few links you may find helpful in your research.