Have you tried printer sharing?

Post #238,730 by tuberculosis 12/21/05 12:51:07 AM Reply	Have you tried printer sharing? A strategy wherein you connect the printer directly to the device that can handle it - the B&W G3, turn on printer sharing over Bonjour (formerly Rendezvous) on the B&W, then it publishes the printer as shared and handles its print queue. I'm doing this to share a dedicated usb printer on my wireless lan (something else you might consider - eliminate all the cables once and for all). Worth a shot. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush
Post #238,737 by Another Scott 12/21/05 8:36:21 AM Reply	As I understand it, that won't work. There are 3 problems that Rand faces: 1) OS X won't print to the serial port, 2) there's only 1 Ethernet port, 3) the HP 6MP printer has a serial (or Centronics) interface. But that reminds me of our arrangement. We have a Canon i550 inkjet and a Lexmark E324 laser printer that both our Athlon64 and our PowerMac G5 (10.2.8) print to just fine. Both the printers have Centronic and USB interfaces. The Athlon64 uses the Centronics interface on the i550, the PowerMac uses the USB interface on the i550. The Athon64 uses the USB interface on the Lexmark and the G5 prints to it via printer sharing by the Athlon64 (running Win2k). (We can also print to the printers via our PowerBook and PC laptops as both the printers are shared on the network.) If there were some way to get a USB port on the B&W G3/G4 box to talk to the printer, I think that might be a way to go. Then sharing the printer via the Ethernet port might work. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be such a box, and there are probably driver issues. It might be cheaper and less aggravating (and less expensive - power wise) to buy an inexpensive laser printer to replace the HP 6MP. My Lexmark E234 was < $150 and has worked very well. A similar [link\|http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16828106218\|E240] is $150 + $15 shipping at newegg (but I imagine you'd have to throw in tax too). Unfortunately, you'll be giving up PostScript. :-( Another option is to hang the 6MP off a cheap, networked, Linux networked box. It apparently works perfectly with Linux. HTH a bit. Cheers, Scott.
Post #238,772 by tuberculosis 12/21/05 12:20:45 PM Reply	Or... Add an airport card to the G3, replace the switch with a WAP, wire the G3 directly to the printer and configur its wireless interface to talk to the WAP - then share the printer. OTOH, I agree that printers (Color even!) are now dirt cheap. I got a nice Epson Stylus C88 for < $80 and it has been solid for over a year. Individual color carts are fairly reasonably priced and last a fairly long time. Probably cheaper than solving the network problem. "Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" --Mark Twain "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." --Albert Einstein "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses." --George W. Bush

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