help me obi wan, my printer is old...

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hello.
this is my first time posting on a forum so please be gentle!
i've just been given an old apple laserwriter 12/640 ps from my dad, and am having a little trouble setting it up.
he gave me the printer, a Farallon ethernet transceiver, and a Lindy 9-port 10base-2/t ethernet adapter hub. he had it set up on an old g3 tower w/os9.??, and it was working fine.
at home i have a BT voyager 1500 wireless router set up to share my cable internet connection (from a cable modem), with my ibook, a powerbook and an xp laptop sharing the connection wirelessly, as well as an xp desktop wired via ethernet to the router.
all internet is kosher, and all computers are online.
i plugged the printer's hub in from port 2 of the router to port "STP1" of the adapter hub, ran "printer setup utility" wirelessly from the ibook, and turned on appletalk.
the utility recognised the printer no probs, but on sending a job to it, the print manager told me the printer was not responding.
phew.
so, basically, what i would ideally like to do is share the printer with all computers on the network (or at least one of them!).
do i need to make a LAN or something, an intranet? (i don't really know what these are), or is the printer just too old to bother with?
did i mention i'm poor?
this seems beyond my meagre computing knowledge, so i was just hoping someone, somewhere might be able to help me. help me obi wan, you're my only hope!
thanking you all in advance,
jim t.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
Performa 6116 2GBSCSI 8MB OS 7.5.3
I'd try to rule out the rest of your network and connect a mac directly to the printers ethernet interfave via a crossover cable. Then test your Appletalk printing.

(1) 7' crossover patch cable = $5.00

Or borrow one if you can. (they are usually red)
 
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J
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red cable?
in there like swimwear! one came with it. i'll give it a go.
what's the difference between a crossover and a regular ethernet cable?
i've been reading up a little and it seems you can get appletalk software for pc - anyone know of freeware/shareware?
thanks again, i'll report back with results.
 
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J
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red cable.
you're a genius.
i got it to work through ethernet on my ibook (crossover cable) after enabling appletalk, then plugged the cable into the router and enabled appletalk through AirPort...
bingo! wireless printing!
now i've just gotta see if the powerbook will be ok.
then the pc's.
don't hold your breath.
thanks so much for your help mate, i appreciate it.
 
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...,and thank you for the new one liner.

Edit:

A cross over cable is wired slightly different than an ordinary straight through patch cable. Twisted pair or ethernet cables have eight wires in four twisted pairs yet only use four of those individual wires for data transfer. A crossover cable swaps the order of wires so you can go node to node versus node to switch to node. Some devices require crossover cables simple by the want to communicate. Connexant DSL modems are a good example.

I believe if you do Add Remove Programs > Add Windows Componnents there is a services for Mac intall. There is also Bonjour for windows.
 

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