G5 and Laserwriter Select 360

SimonJester

Registered
I have a G5 dual processor tower and an old but good Laserwriter Select 360. I'd like to get them to work together. There are Laserwriter Select 360 drivers in the version of OS X, (10.3.9) that I'm using, so there must be a way to get them to work.

Since the printer has a serial port and a parallel port but no Ethernet, USB or Firewire port there must be a way to adapt the computer to the printer. I've tried a USB to parallel adapter. The computer does not see the printer. Yes, I know about the switch on the back. It should be set to 6. I tried 6 and all the other numbers, just in case.

Then I tried a Dayna mini Etherprint to connect the printer to my Airport Express. Yes, there is an Airport card in my G5 and yes, the Airport is turned on. The computer sees the Airport, but not the printer. I also tried connecting the parallel-USB adapter to the Airport. Nothing worked.

This weekend I'm going to try connecting the ethernet cable from the Dayna mini Etherprint directly to the G5, but then I'll loose my internet for the duration of the experiment.

Oh, I used a conventional ethernet cable and also tried a crossover ethernet cable with the Dayna mini Etherprint. Neither worked.

Does anyone know how Apple intended people to connect serial printers to their new computers? They include drivers, so they must have some way.
 
I connected the Dayna Mini Etherprint to the printer and to the ethernet port on my G5 and everything worked perfectly.

Then I tried to connect my DSL modem and the printer using a small Farallon hub. I could still print, but no internet connection. I assume a router is what I need, instead of a hub. But I have another idea...

I was reading in another forum, (Apple's, I think), about the new computers they're putting out with 2 ethernet ports. They were discussing settings to change to get both ports working at the same time. That gave me an idea: I have an ethernet card that came with my DSL account, in case I had a PC with no ethernet built-in.

In the past, I have tried to plug the ethernet card into an empty slot in my G5 and it fit, but the system profiler saw it as a video card, not another ethernet port. If I change the setting propperly, I might be able to have 2 ethernet ports– one for printing and one for internet.

Any info on getting this to work?

Never mind. I found some info on drivers that were supposed to work with the card I have and downloaded them. They did nothing. I bought a router on e-Bay– under $20 shipping included. I'll get it soon and that should fix everything.
 
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