26 Oct
2012
26 Oct
'12
1:20 p.m.
I am thinking of networking a group of classic computers and printers
computers: (only listed ones without Ethernet port)
A500
A1200
Mircobee premium plus (classic mircobee software dose not support Ethernet)
printers:
pen plotter
dot matrix (two lost in the QLD flood 2010-2011, looking for another)
daisy wheel (have not got one yet)
It is not clear to me what you want to do.
Do you want ot share several pritners between several computers so that
any machine cna print to any printer. Do you want to allow multiple
printing at oen tiem (so tha, for example, the A500 and use the the
plotter and the Microbee cna use a dotmatrix printer at the same time).
DO you wnate otbe able to transfer data between the computers?
In the second case, you would probably wnt to use the serial ports.
Parallel pritner ports on classic machines are not often bindirecitonal.
I haev a 16 port any-to-any RS232 'switch'. It's not just a 'switch',
it's reeally a Z80 computer with 1M RAM (for buffering) and 16 RS232
interfaces (!). You can configure it to link any machine to any other
machine. I am pretty sure parallel port versions have been made.
-tony