Printer Autoswitchbox acting quirky

I have 2 PC's in a simple Peer to peer network and I thought that a simple solution to sharing the one printer we have would be to install an autoswitchbox. Of course, in doing so we had to disable the bi-directional printer communication...

The problem is the damn thing is acting quirky.

If we print something and want to cancel, we have to unplug the printer cable and wait for the printer to time out before we have an option to cancel the print. Opening the printer box from the start menu and deleting the print job does not work.

Many times, when we try to print something, the printer starts spitting out pages of paper with one line of garbage at the top.

When I shut my computer down, the printer tries again to do the 'spit out pieces of paper with one line of garbage at the top' thing.

The only solution seems to unplug the printer's power for several minutes so that the printer's memory is cleared (the HP deskjet 880C doesn't seem to have a way to purge the printer buffer or the printer's memory)

Is this normal quirkiness with an autoswitchbox? Would this be solved with a manual switchbox? If I switched the switch box (doesn't that sound confusing??) to a manual switchbox, would I be able to re-enable bi-directional printer communication? Should I abandon the switchbox idea completely and revert to a merely shared printer over a network?

We like the idea of being able to print independantly (without having to have BOTH PC's on)... Is there another solution without getting a 3rd PC?

Dan

[This message has been edited by DanDMan (edited 03-04-2002).]

The "cancel" thing if normal if you disable bi-directional communication.

If you disable the bi-directional communication there is no way for the printer to recover from the data error, which is what it thinks the cancel is. You have to purge the print buffer.

The other problems with garbage I’m not sure about.

As far as is they’re any other way to do this the answer is yes. Here’s one: http://www.castelle.com/products/lanpress/default.htm

But it's expensive, and it would be easier to buy a printer that has built-in network capability (or one that works better with a switch)


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it's just a jump to the left....

Unfortunately I had to disable the bidirectional communication when I installed the autoswitchbox.

What is the best way to purge the print buffer? The only way I have seen is to unplug the darn thing for a couple of minutes. I know that I could reduce the printer timeout time, but I am not sure if that will have unattractive and unforseen ramifications...

That print box from your link is very nice, but a bit pricey...

Do you know if the bi-directional communication is possible with a manual switchbox?

Thanks for the input!!

Dan

Bi-directional communication is possible with a manual switchbox, IF it has all 25 pins connected on each cable (assuming you are using a parallel connection). In other words, inside the box all 25 wires from each connector must be connected straight through to all of the connectors on the back. Also, you will need 2 25 pin straight through cables to go from each PC to the box, and 1 IEEE-1284 compatible printer cable to go from the box to the printer. Even then, you could still have problems of the printer was not switched to the PC that was going to print when that PC booted. (The HP monitor software might think the printer was not detected unless the PC was re-booted with the switch set to the correct position.)