Re: Postscript printer, serial or parallel cable?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 21 December 2003 21:54, Doug Poland wrote: > The handbook states that I can use serial or parallel cabling to a > postscript capable printer but there may be some advantage to a serial > cable as it is bi-directional. I've got several newer IEEE It also says "In general, serial interfaces are slower than parallel interfaces", which would be a major factor for me. > something-or-another parallel cables lying around unused. They were > rather expensive and, IIRC, proported to be bi-directional. I see no reason to not use a parallel cable. They aren't too slow, and I haven't really had any problems with bi-directional parallel printing even on older hardware. > Question: Is a serial hookup preferable to parallel? As a future In my opinion, not. But then again I've never tried serial. The idea of trying to configure a serial printer sounds fairly hideous to me... speed, stop bits, parity... no thanks. Personally I would attempt to obtain a JetDirect card for the printer and give it an ethernet interface. They are rather expensive new, but you can probably get one cheap from ebay. I did :) > possiblity, this modest FBSD box may become a dedicated print server > with a color laser and ink jet also hanging off it. I'll probably > install CUPS and "share" it with windows users via Samba. That's the setup I have here. Works great with CUPS and the hpijs drivers. - -- Cheers, Chris Howells -- [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://chrishowells.co.uk, PGP ID: 0x33795A2C KDE/Qt/C++/PHP Developer: http://www.kde.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/6X6cF8Iu1zN5WiwRAuKtAJ9dt6peRFDtQauwd1RNzmNgxFjqEwCeI3ip Diun8ZDhdbF/TAtroxTS/8A= =3x7R -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Postscript printer, serial or parallel cable?
On Sun, 21 Dec 2003, Doug Poland wrote: > I recently got my hands on a free (woowho!) HP 4050 printer. That's an excellent printer, and works well with FreeBSD. (I've got a 4000, and use about a dozen 4050s heavily with a homegrown FreeBSD printing system at a client location.) > I'm going to hook it up to a FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE server. The printer > has two serial (one male/one female) connectors, One's serial, one's a connector for auxiliary add-ons (HDD15, I think). > a Centronix port, and > some odd looking port that looks like you plug a mouse into it. I think that one is for the optional IR receiver. Never seen one of those for real, though. > The handbook states that I can use serial or parallel cabling to a > postscript capable printer but there may be some advantage to a serial > cable as it is bi-directional. I've got several newer IEEE > something-or-another parallel cables lying around unused. They were > rather expensive and, IIRC, proported to be bi-directional. Use the parallel. Serial works, but there's little to recommend it any more. It used to be that serial let you program PostScript directly. Any more, you'd just run Ghostscript for that. However, there's a catch. With both parallel and USB, I've found printing from FreeBSD's lpd to be relatively slow. There are a few other comments on this to be found in Google, but no resolution. (I've noticed it with lasers and inkjets and different types or settings of parallel ports--PIO, EPP, ECP.) So my suggestion is to first try parallel and test it for speed. If you notice it taking a very long time for large data transfers, shop for the cheapest EIO JetDirect you can find and put the printer directly on your network. -Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
Re: Postscript printer, serial or parallel cable?
Doug Poland wrote: Hi, I recently got my hands on a free (woowho!) HP 4050 printer. I'm going to hook it up to a FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE server. The printer has two serial (one male/one female) connectors, a Centronix port, and some odd looking port that looks like you plug a mouse into it. The handbook states that I can use serial or parallel cabling to a postscript capable printer but there may be some advantage to a serial cable as it is bi-directional. I've got several newer IEEE something-or-another parallel cables lying around unused. They were rather expensive and, IIRC, proported to be bi-directional. Question: Is a serial hookup preferable to parallel? As a future possiblity, this modest FBSD box may become a dedicated print server with a color laser and ink jet also hanging off it. I'll probably install CUPS and "share" it with windows users via Samba. Thanks for your input If I'm not totally mistaken (been a while since I've used a serial printer for anything), the parallel should be a fair amount quicker- the only thing I remember about the serials is it was easier/cheaper to find long serial cables, which was important when a server in the server room or on another floor was doing print server duties for a printer in a publicly accessible area Any reasonably modern parallel cable and parallel port is also bi-directional, so the only advantage I see with serial is if you're cabling it like above... Scott ___ [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"
