[olePigeon]

We have a nice Epson Stylus COLOR 3000 printer (wide format, 1440 dpi, very nice) and all this time it's been hooked up to a beige G3 running Classic. We're updating our lab and everythings going eMac, but we still need the printer.

I know there are numerous LocalTalk to Ethernet adapters out there. I was wondering if anyone can make suggestion for a brand?

I found this one, and it's pretty cheap, only $88.

http://www.spacecentersystems.com/ca...roducts_id/991

It's an AsanteTalk LocalTalk to Ethernet adapter. I'm a little confused, though. Can the printer plug directly into that, then the adapter into our switch, and now all the computers can print to it? That's what we'd like to have.

Thanks

[rag on a muffin]

didnt one come with your printer? they usually do with the nicer ones.

[tooki]

A stock SC3000 does not have LocalTalk, but serial*. No adapter was ever available for Epson serial printers to Ethernet.

IIRC, that printer also has a parallel port, for which numerous third-party ethernet print servers are available.

The ideal solution, though, is to get an Epson Type B ethernet card for the printer. They're going for around $30-40 on eBay. This is also the only networking supported by the driver. Alternatively, you could use a parallel-to-USB adapter cable, or the Type B FireWire card, and connect the SC3000 to a host Mac running OS X, then use Printer Sharing to share it out to all the machines on the network. This would give you one advantage: PostScript printing.

tooki

*Yes, I know that on the Mac, the LocalTalk and serial ports were one and the same. But one must understand that the Mac's port basically is two ports in one: it can change modes (but cannot be both at once). Very few printers (notably, some HP Deskwriters) did this. Epson's are high-speed serial.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by tooki:
The ideal solution, though, is to get an Epson Type B ethernet card for the printer. They're going for around $30-40 on eBay. This is also the only networking supported by the driver. Alternatively, you could use a parallel-to-USB adapter cable, or the Type B FireWire card, and connect the SC3000 to a host Mac running OS X, then use Printer Sharing to share it out to all the machines on the network. This would give you one advantage: PostScript printing.

I didn't know it was just a standard "Type B," the manual doesn't say anything about the connector. I'll look around for that. Otherwise I'll snag a Parallel -> Ethernet print server. Thanks.