Hello, Roy.  This is actually about printer switch-boxes. - -

-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to PHIL MARLOWE <=-

 PM> I used to use a switchbox to choose between  printers, but it was
 PM> the old style mechanical type. Worked pretty good.

 RJT> I've got a few of those around,  one with 36-pin centronics type
 RJT> connectors, one with 25-pin connectors,  and a couple that have
 RJT> mixtures of both,  allowing for the use of "standard"
printer cables in
 RJT> all three directions.

 PM> I've heard of newer types, but haven't kept up.

 RJT> I heard something about those being a problem for use with laser
 RJT> printers,  but can't remember why,  exactly.

Main prob I recall reading about with laser printers seemed to have been
with older ones like original HP Laserjet types - - on those, if the
manual switch type wasn't set to the laser printer, and you switched it
over while it was trying to print,  I heard it would damage some of
those laser printers.  So back then, and maybe even now, autoswitches
are recommended for use with laser printers.  I think that prob may have
since then pretty much gone away, since for awhile here I had two of
those manual ABCD boxes set up, so I could switch whichever 'puter I
wanted to my choice of printers.  I got that wrong often enough that I
would have blown up my old Panasonic KXP-4420 laser printer long ago if
my setup had that problem.

One nuisance problem is that when sending the wrong output to the wrong
printer,  you can mess up a _lot_ of sheets of paper before you can get
the darn thing stopped.

I have a few small ABCD autoswitches, and used those for a bit, but
right now I'm not using any of them.  I even had at least one which
could work in either direction, so I had it so that I could again hook
up my choice of boxes to choice of printers, using the autoswitches in
manual mode.

I've heard that some of the autoswitches don't work well with some of
the newer color inkjet printers, and I saw a bit of that when I had the
above setup - I didn't get all the functionality back and forth between
the HP software on the machine and the HP Deskjet 890C - stuff like the
testing and diagnostics software.  On this type inkjet printer, they do
as much as they can with the Winders software, and the printer only has
two buttons on it - - one to print, and the other is a power switch.

None of the inkjets I've tried switchboxes with was a "Winprinter" - and
I imagine there could be a whole set of other probs with those and
autoswitches.

ttyl - - -  JimH.

... Bother! said Pooh, as Winders didn't recognize his hardware.
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