Technical Support - Line Print Server

[jn.loudnotes]

Before I call Apple and try out my AppleCare plan, I thought I'd ask if anyone here knows how to help me with something.

My nice laptop is running just fine, but it doesn't have a printer for it.  My printer is connected to my old G4 with sys 9.2.  It's an Epson, and they haven't released any OS X drivers for the printer.  Anyway, I tried installing the 9 drivers on this machine, but then I can't print from OS X on it, which is what I want to do.  

So, if I hook this machine directly up to the printer, it won't work.  But what I'd like to try and do is print from the other computer.  They aren't directly networked. . .and I'd rather not bother setting one up if possible.  What I'd like to do is use the IP printing feature in OS X print manager.  Originally this failed, due to my firewall, but I took it down, and I was able to connect to the computers using IP addys.  

Problem - it won't print.  The computers connect just fine on port 515 looking for a line print server.  However, apparently my old G4 isn't sharing one.  I have USB print sharing fully set up though.  What can I do to get the laptop to print off the G4?

[alaric]

I have an almost identical setup to yours. I'm gonna assume the laptop and G4 are on the same airport/ethernet network. If so, I have an almost identical setup to yours.  Unfortunatley, we have not yet found a way to print to the os9 machine from osx. But, and this is an expensive but, Apple's new Airport Wireless Basestation they released today kinda solves this problem. The new base station has a usb port on it, you just plug in the printer and it shares it over airport! How cool is that?

So to summarize, no workaround i know of with your current setup. However, $300 will buy you a solution. Hope that helps...

[Jimmy]

So to summarize, no workaround i know of with your current setup. However, $300 will buy you a solution. Hope that helps...

Since a new Epson printer that works with OS X would only cost under $100 or so, it's cheaper then a $300 solution.

Loudnotes, you can't IP print to it because that would need the driver on the OSX machine.  There are more Epson drivers out for OSX now, so I'd check again for it.  If it still isn't there, you will either have to set up a simple network and let the OS9 machine do the printing, or spring for a new printer.

Before calling apple support though, check their discussion boards.  I've found more answers there then anywhere else.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/