Re: script for USB printers

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Philip Friedman wrote:
> yes, sort of. But more like printing over either parallel or USB (rather than both...and).  I
> wanted to nail down the USB capability, because I know I'm going to need it, and soon, though for
> now I'm spoiled by using the cable and not having to wait the 20-30 seconds for the first page that
> goes with using LPT1 redirected toUSB. And it would be best for me to have both capabilities
> without having to reboot to change. Which I now appear to have.
> > (Cannot imagine why, since on 2K/XP you CAN map
> > a USB port to an LPT for use with DOS apps.)
>
> missed this, somehow. Forgive me for raising a matter of syntax (considering it's Patricia writing)
> but I think of my task as mapping LPT1 to USB, not USB to LPT.  If 2K can do this itself, I would
> be delighted to hear more
The routine Robert gave you did just that: mapped the
one port to the other. Now as to the syntax, I see how
one could look at it either way: you're sending output
that the application "thinks" it's sending out an LPT
to what is in fact a USB port.
But in general computer networking terminology, the
"remote" is "mapped" to the local. Thus the deskjet
attached to \\Anna's USB port is "mapped" to \\Josie's
LPT2. And logical drive f: on \\Bethany is "mapped" to
drive g: on \\Francesca. And what Robert's routine does
is take advantage of a capability of NT flavors (can't
be done on 9x) to treat local resources as if they were
remote. So you can map a local USB port to a local LPT.
This is the terminology M$ uses: when you "Map Network
drive" the local name comes first, then the fully
qualified path, including UNC, of the drive to be
mapped. And Karp's Windows 98 Annoyances
(O'Reilly, 1998) explicitly calls this "Mapping a
remote drive to a new drive letter..." (caption, p. 289).
> > If so, HP
> > says you shouldn't,
>
> shouldn't what?  alternate between USB and parallel from one PC? can you point me to a reference
> for this so I can keep from doing myself unintended harm? HP's caveat seems odd, given your remark
> immediately below
Yes. Or at least not connect both connectors to the
same PC. It's in the docs that came with the DeskJet
5650, which are over in the office. You might be able
to find it on HP's Web site; if not, I'll get the
ipsissima verba over the weekend.
Now I don't necessarily believe everything
manufacturers say (esp. when they can't get their
installation instructions right!). But I don't do
things they say not to while the machine is still under
warranty.


--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@xxxxxxxx