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birdman · Apr 13, 2003, 12:27 AM

I have the opposite problem of most of the other threads here: instead of an old printer with a new Mac, I have a PowerMac 8500 and want to use my new HP LaserJet 1200 on it, if at all possible. I know there are adapters that let you use some serial devices on a USB port, but not vice-versa. And even then, I've heard that printing doesn't work with such adapters. Anybody know if this is possible, or will I just have to install a PCI USB card to use the printer? (Which may be the same price as an adapter anyway!)

-birdman

Back up 15 and punt · Apr 13, 2003, 10:22 AM

Originally posted by birdman:
I have the opposite problem of most of the other threads here: instead of an old printer with a new Mac, I have a PowerMac 8500 and want to use my new HP LaserJet 1200 on it, if at all possible. I know there are adapters that let you use some serial devices on a USB port, but not vice-versa. And even then, I've heard that printing doesn't work with such adapters. Anybody know if this is possible, or will I just have to install a PCI USB card to use the printer? (Which may be the same price as an adapter anyway!)

-birdman

If you can find a PCI USB card, use it, its the simplest way.

tooki · Apr 14, 2003, 08:34 PM

No adapters exist for what you want anyway (all the serial-USB adapters are for USB computer - serial peripheral, not for a serial computer and a USB peripheral). The PCI card is probably the easiest.

That said, I'd just as soon recommend to you that you get an ethernet module for the printer. It won't be as cheap, but it'll be easier to set up and more flexible. (Of course, this assumes that your Mac has ethernet on board.)

I think that for the LJ1200, ethernet is provided by an external print server, in which case you can get pretty much any brand, although HP's will probably be nice and refined.

tooki

birdman · Apr 14, 2003, 11:23 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
That said, I'd just as soon recommend to you that you get an ethernet module for the printer. It won't be as cheap, but it'll be easier to set up and more flexible. (Of course, this assumes that your Mac has ethernet on board.)

I think that for the LJ1200, ethernet is provided by an external print server, in which case you can get pretty much any brand, although HP's will probably be nice and refined.

If I'm not mistaken, HP actually makes a network-ready version of the 1200 (probably 1200N or something like that), but it costs around $600-700. This one is normally priced at $400, but Office Max had them for $200 last week for some strange reason.

I'm just glad to have a laser printer at all! And after thinking about it, what I'm going to do is take the USB2/Firewire PCI card out of my PC and use it on the 8500. I just installed it in the PC a few months ago, but hardly ever use it. The PC has USB 1.1 ports, so this way I'll be able to print from both the 8500 and the PC. Yay.

Thanks for the feedback.

-birdman

DrBoar · Apr 15, 2003, 09:57 AM

Any generic UBB card (10-15 dollar when on sale) will work well. The Ethernet card is 150-200 and thus quite pointless unless you really need to share it with several other computers on different platforms. For mac only network there is USB printer sharing.

As I recall the USB to serial adaptors are mcuh more expensive than USB cards so if there were such thing as a serial to USB devise it still probably would not be a good solution. Serial is even slower than USB...