Hi all.

I'm trying to help out someone who has recently upgraded to a new Dell
desktop, from an older machine. She wants to use her old printer, a
Laserjet IIIP with the new machine.

It had been connected to the old machine with a parallel cable. Since
the new machine doesn't have any (exposed) parallel ports, I hooked up
the new printer with a serial cable (the IIIP has both parallel &
serial connectors on the back). After doing this I accessed the menu
of the IIIP and switched it from parallel to serial I/O.

Unfortunately test pages that I print are not getting to the printer.
The printer actually shows no activity at all. Upon viewing the
printer information in XP, it actually shows the print jobs getting
created, indicates that they are printing, and in a short time deletes
the job. (Just as one would expect it to display, if everything were
working.)

I've been googling around and haven't spotted information on how to
deal with this yet, but will keep up the search. Now before I tell her
that her IIIP has got to go and that she should replace it with a USB
printer has anyone experience with such a problem? TIA.

In article <1111516502.097660.282110 (AT) f14g2000cwb (DOT) googlegroups.com>,
bral <almondb (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I've never gotten a real printer to work on a serial cable. Not for
lack of trying.

I suggest you look for a USB-Parallel-port gadget. I'm sure they exist.
Or one of these solutions:

Does your printer have an RJ45 jack on it by any chance ? That would
be an ethernet adapter and, IMO, the best way to hook up any PC that
had a NIC (of course.)

If it doesn't I'd spend about $40 for an ethernet "print server", like this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...129-220&depa=0

If you don't have WiFI and are thinking of installing it you can get
a WiFI AP that includes a print server for almost no additional bucks.
(read the fine print, you want one with a PARALLEL inteface, not USB>)


Also, hit hp.com for the lastest drivers at some point.


--

a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m

Don't blame me. I voted for Gore.

Newegg sells an adapter from USB to Parallel;
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...187-001&DEPA=0


"Al Dykes" <adykes (AT) panix (DOT) com> wrote

Previously bral <almondb (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Might be a handshaking problem. If some lines have the wrong logic
level, the sender thinks the reciver gets all while the receiver
never sees a bit. The problem here is that it is not that easy to
debug. Easiest is to try several configurations or better look
into the documentation of the printer what cable it expects.

One thing you can do to make debugging easier is to set Xon/Xoff
(allso called "software-") handshaking. It is easier to debug,
since it neds only the Rx and Tx lines to be connected properly
and the rest can be ignored. Do this on the printer and the
computer. Also make sure the other parameters (speed, bits/character,
stop-bits, Baud-rate) are set to the same on both devices.

However serial I/O is really slow. I would qadvise to get a
print-server with a parallel port, e.g. ftom Netgear or an
USB-to-parallell adapter.

Arno