Small network consisting -
Netgear FS108 switch receiving connections from:
G4 + OS10.3 iBook + OS10.3 PowerBook G3 + OS9.1 8200 + OS8.6 (9.1)
HP Laserjet 1200N + Jet Direct Epson SP7500 + 100BT card
Skystar 360E Satellite proxy server
all connected with good cabling
The three computers all gain access to each other and to the internet via broadband courtesy of BT Business Satellite 500/4 (shortly to be 500/1) and are set up with TCP set to DHCP, as advised by BT Support.
There are two problems which have arisen since upgrading to 10.3. The AT connection to the 8200 does not work when it is running OS8.6 and the connection to the ESP7500 does not work. Nor does it respond to a USB connection (Gimp Print drivers). The G4 can see the 7500 with an AT Lookup and with pinging its default IP address but it refuses to print anything. I get a warning saying things like "no pages found!" come up in the driver window, or timeout errors. before when it was 10.2 I could happily connect to the ESP7500 and the HPLJ1200 over AppleTalk but now only the HP is ready to do so. There is only a Gimp Print driver for the 7500 for OSX. On the 8.6 and 9.1 machines there is no problem printing to it over AppleTalk with the Epson driver. I have tried setting up drivers for USB, AT and for IP. None of them work. However, I have noticed something odd. The server which assigns the addresses to the computers gives a full hosting ID such as afp://btosat-217-152-52-52.btopenworld.com/ for the G4 and in the print set up utility the different printers were being given a similar host, even the USB set up. This is where my networking know-how gets lost. I feel sure that the router/proxy server is behind the problem but I was unable to correct it by switching off the 360E while I tried to re-establish a link to the printer. I know I can speak to this printer over AppleTalk as it was working fine a couple of weeks ago. Epson are not interested and are clearly not planning to release an OSX driver for this printer and the SourceForge forum does not seem to be very active in this area.
I would be happy to print to the 7500 via the 8200/120 using it as a print server (I have no particular need for PostScript - direct printing is all I require) but I cannot see a way to get this to work across the OSx and OS8.6 or 9.1 divide. I really don't want to have to buy a dedicated server which would probably cost as much as it would to upgrade the 7500 to a 7600 which does have an Epson OSX driver. It is a different engine so it cannot be adapted.
So....HELP! Any good ideas welcome.
The BT server is dishing out addresses but with the 7500 set to Auto it is not accepting an ID from the server. I wonder if I should have some way of separating out the IP protocol for communicating with the server from an AppleTalk protocol for computer to computer and to the printers. I do not see how I can isolate the two functions. And it gets more complicated because I cannot see the 8.6 machine on the G4 any more. I was told that it was up to 8.5 that was incompatible (Mr Pogue no less) but 10.3 seems to have raised the bar without telling anyone.
Sorry again for the long message.
Drew
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