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Rob[_40_] Rob[_40_] is offline
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Default usb Parallel converter

Eli the Bearded wrote:
In sci.electronics.repair, Michael Trew wrote:
trategist.dot.dot.com
wrote:
(I want to replace 1995 printer which is connected to 1995 and 2007
computers.)

[...]
Yes, it seems that he wants to connect a new USB printer to a parallel
printer port on said 1995 computer. Even if possible, the computer


Read again. Several computers oldest of which is 1995.

won't recognize the new printer... good luck finding drivers for that
machine, likely running Win 3.11 or 95.


Generic PCL or Postscript will work fine with older computers. Also
Epson compatible line printing. I have seen VJP ask about XP and Linux
issues. I venture there are modern Linux distributions that can still
run on 1995 hardware.

Using network printing, possibly with a pi as a server, and generic PCL
/ Postscript is probably easiest for OSes of that era.

Elijah
------
first used network printing in 1991


Of course it depends a lot on the printer. I have never bought "toy
printers" so I have no personal experience with that, I always used
printers that supported Postscript or well-recognized other standards.
However, I know that printers have existed (especially on USB) which
do not support any printer language and can only print a bitmap sent
to them in a proprietary protocol. The Windows driver that comes
with it does all the rendering on the computer then sends the prepared
pages to the printer.
No idea how common that still is.

A "red flag" is "only drivers for Windows available for the printer".