Ralph Shumaker wrote:
Gabriel Sechan wrote:
From: Ralph Shumaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Not through the USB. Through ethernet. Real printers are attached via
ethernet IMHO. Anything else is a for-home-use-only toy.
OK. So forget USB? Or do these printers have both USB *and* catV
(at the same time) hooked up between the printer and the PC?
Ignore this, this is just Tracy's biases floating in. If you're not
sharing the printer with multiple computers, then USB is just fine.
For home networks, USB is just fine. Ethernet is really a small
buisness need (large buisnesses need industrial type printers, not all
in ones).
I thought I was losing my mind. Turns out it was just my sanity.
I thought that JetDirect was primarily for making the printer a
stand-alone on the network accessible by anything else on the network.
I believe you are right. JetDirect is an add-on available for some HP
printers which adds stand-alone print server capability to the printer
so that it can be used without a host PC.
But yes, some of the more expensive all in ones do have built in
ethernet and/or wireless.
My question was actually more like "Are you saying that both ethernet
and usb cable have to be used at the same time between the printer and
the PC?". But that question was only because of what it /sounded/ like
Tracy was trying to say.
I don't know if you can use both connections, I don't know why not. I'm
not sure why you'd want to though. The point of Ethernet or WiFi is so
the printer can be accessed independently of a host PC.
There seem to be two types of all-in-ones, those with fax built-in,
and those without. It must be assumed (I think) that those without
need for the PC to have a fax/modem if you want faxing capability (or
not). (I seem to be getting more and more mixed up as this goes on.)
No. Those all in ones without a fax modem built in can't fax. At
all. If you need fax, you need to buy one with a built in fax modem.
The ones without fax modems are meant for people who don't need a fax
machine at all.
I did not word that very well. When I saw what I wrote, I had a little
bit of a hard time following it. There should be a comma to greatly
improve clarity: "It must be assumed (I think) that [the all-in-ones]
without [fax], need for the PC to have a fax/modem if you want faxing
capability (or not)." In other words, if the all-in-one has no fax,
then faxing would still be achievable with a fax/modem installed in the
PC itself.
But then the all-in-one would have to be able to somehow get
the scanned image to the PC, which so far, I understand to happen
somehow by magic email.
An All-in-one printer is, at its simplest printer and scanner
functionality all in one physical package. The means by which a scanned
image gets to the PC in an all-in-one (AIO) printer is the same as it
would in a stand-alone scanner. Today, that usually means via USB.
I just don't know how this email (or image) is
supposed to get from the all-in-one to the PC, whether via phone line
from the fax portion of the all-in-one to my ISP then back to my PC
(again via phone line), or via USB (or ethernet, or wireless) directly
to some email server that I probably have to set up on my PC, or via
pixie dust, or via magical incantations. From what has been explained
to me so far, I'm betting on one of the latter two. (Seriously.)
I think you are over complicating your conception of how it works. So
I'll give you an overcomplicated explanation of how it all works.
I'll assume you have no lack of practical understanding of how a printer
gets its information on what to print from the PC, and that you have
equal understanding on how a PC receives an image from a stand-alone
scanner.
In the cases of both printer and scanner being stand-alone units, you
will naturally have one cable each from the PC to the printer and the
scanner. For most modern consumer class devices, both scanner and
printer will use USB to communicate to the PC.
It's also possible of course that the printer may be a Parallel port
(PIO) type, or even have its own Ethernet port. Older scanners used the
SCSI interface and I believe some high-end scanners have Ethernet ports.
Leaving out the FAX functionality for the moment, consider that once the
functionality of scanner and printer have been mechanically integrated
into one package, there is no longer a need for one cable each from the
scanner /and/ printer portion of the All-in-one package (AIO) to the
host PC. And given enough internal firmware logic (smartness) in the AIO
it's also logical that a host PC may not be needed. In any case, the
data gets to (the printer portion of) or from (the scanner portion of)
the host PC (or network) in the same way as it did with the equivalent
stand-alone units.
In the case of printing, the host PC (or some PC on the network) is
responsible for pre-processing the file to be printed. For scanning, a
PC (somewhere) is also responsible for post-processing the scanned image.
Now let's add the FAX functionality to the mix. The FAX functionality
might merely be a FAX-modem inside the big ugly beige box. Add a keypad
on top and you have a complete FAX machine. In fact, a real FAX machine
is just that: a modem, a scanner, and a printer - all in one package.
Think of an AIO printer as a FAX machine in which you can use some of
the three functions independently of the others.
With a non-FAX All-in-one, software will be needed on the host PC to add
FAX capability: the software
1) tells the scanner to scan the source document,
2) post-processes the scanned image to a file, and
3) sends the file over a FAX-modem within the host PC.
With an AIO which includes FAX capability the process would be similar
except that there might be a phone line connected directly to the AIO.
The FAX process would look like
1) Scan document,
2) send scanned data to internal software, which
3) post-processes data to a file and
4) sends the file via modem over phone (or via Ethernet over network)
to a pre-selected destination.
No real magic involved over the way FAXes have always worked except for
the packaging and the the addition of an Ethernet port (on-board or on a
hosted PC) and some built in software which knows about email.
Basic functions of all-in-one-with-fax attached to PC:
1) Printer: PC sends a print job to it via USB or catV or what?
USB, Ethernet, or Parallel port.
2) Copier: Feed document through and out spits a copy. (no PC
necessary)
A PC is not necessarily necessary. We have computers in everything
nowadays, why not All-in-one printers. But a scanner is functionally
speaking, a copier.
3) Scanner: Feed document through and image gets to PC who-knows-how.
The same way it does with any scanner: USB, or Ethernet (once upon a
time SCSI). I think copier == scanner. Differences may be a copier can
handle simple post-processing internally, while post-processing of a
scanner's image is done externally but more flexibly.
4) Incoming Fax to hard copy: Phone rings, all-in-one-with-fax
answers, receives image and prints.
Yep, because it's a FAX machine too!
5) Incoming Fax to PC file: Phone rings, all-in-one-with-fax
answers, receives image and image gets to PC who-knows-how.
The same way it gets to a PC from a scanner: USB or Ethernet.
6) Outgoing Fax from hard copy: Feed document, dial number, scans,
calls, image sent.
Just like a FAX machine.
7) Outgoing Fax from PC file: Who-knows-how file comes from PC,
dials, and sends.
Source document is scanned by scanner component of All-in-one (AIO).
Image is sent to PC via USB or Ethernet. PC dials modem and sends file
or sends file to appropriate network address. Or AIO is smart enough to
send image itself over phone or Ethernet. Also source document may
already be in a file format so scanning step can be skipped.
8) Did I miss anything?
You wanna rethink that question? ;-)
The other big feature of all in ones are photo card slots- they let
you take a card from a digital camera, plug it in, and print images
directly off the card. If you print a lot of photos and don't touch
them up in photoshop, thats a nice feature. If not, its useless to you.
So, the photo card is useful in this situation only for direct
printing?
Well, it's not really a "Photo card". It's a memory card (SD, CF, etc.).
But the printer expects to see image data on the card. Specifically JPEG
files.
No scanning to the photo card?
It's a memory card so it's not scanned, it's read. Like memory. The
printer just has expectations of what's on the card (just like the
camera did).
No transfer between the photo card and the PC?
If you want, I'm sure that's technically possible. It's a requirement on
Kodak's EasyShare printer-docks: you can't get the picture from the
camera to the PC without the printer-dock. But other than the silly
Kodak exception, if you wanted to read a camera's memory card (e.g. to
edit) on your PC, why would you want to do it from the printer?
The point of the the memory slots on the printer is so you can print a
limited number of sizes of pictures directly from the camera (so to
speak). Hopefully your pictures don't need any pre-printing surgery.
No faxing from the photo card?
If we're talking All-in-one printers with memory card slots, then why not?
For reference, here's that other set again:
Basic functions of all-in-one attached to PC with fax/modem:
4) Incoming Fax to hard copy: Phone rings, PC answers, receives image
and goes to step #1.
Yes.
5) Incoming Fax to PC file: Phone rings, PC answers, receives image and
stores to file.
Yes. Print to file rather than print to printer.
6) Outgoing Fax from hard copy: Do step #3, then PC somehow knows this
is a fax and where to send it.
PC knows nothing. ;-) Seriously, Software running on the PC assume it's
a FAX because you told it through a software application. It's no more
magic than sending a FAX from a dedicated FAX machine: you push a bunch
of buttons on the top panel to tell the machine what to send to whom.
7) Outgoing Fax from PC file: Who-knows-what program sends file out via
fax.
Are you assuming a file is not created in in (6)? It is:
A) Place document on scanner
B) Scan document to file
C) Post-process file (save, print, FAX, email, etc.)
(6) uses all three steps. (7) uses only step (C).
--
Best Regards,
~DJA.
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