any way to mirror LPT output to two devices?

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S

ST

Does anyone know of a device that in effect doubles one lpt port so it
can print to two printers? LIke the equivalent of a phone splitter?
Many thanks in advance,
Sara
 
From: (e-mail address removed)
<[email protected]
Click to expand...
Does anyone know of a device that in effect doubles one lpt port so it
can print to two printers? LIke the equivalent of a phone splitter?
Click to expand...

You could attach one printer via parallel and the other via USB if your
computer and printer(s) are so enabled.
Or you could buy an AB box. The box attaches to your parallel port and gives
you two ports on the back of the box to attach your two printers. It has a
dial on the front which points to either A or B. This is how you control which
printer you are printing to.
HTH
 
You could attach one printer via parallel and the other via USB if your
computer and printer(s) are so enabled.
Or you could buy an AB box. The box attaches to your parallel port and gives
you two ports on the back of the box to attach your two printers. It has a
dial on the front which points to either A or B. This is how you control which
printer you are printing to.
HTH
Click to expand...

Be careful of the switch boxes with rotary dials -- if you change the
printer while it's powered up yo may send a surge into it and wreck
the printer or your printer port. The electronic ones are better. Also
you could install an additional printer port on a PCI card, $20 or
less.
 
Thank you for these suggestions. Unfortunately it's a point of sale
machine that has no expansion options. The need is to have a receipt
printer next to the machine, as well as one in the kitchen (this is a
poor-man's hack of a restaurant application). I definitely need
something that sits outside the computer. And a switch box won't work
because I need it to print at both printers. In my research I've found
evidence of others looking for something like this. I wish it existed!
Thanks for your posts!!!
 
ST said:
Thank you for these suggestions. Unfortunately it's a point of sale
machine that has no expansion options. The need is to have a receipt
printer next to the machine, as well as one in the kitchen (this is a
poor-man's hack of a restaurant application). I definitely need
something that sits outside the computer. And a switch box won't work
because I need it to print at both printers. In my research I've found
evidence of others looking for something like this. I wish it existed!
Click to expand...

It's possible. Use a parallel-to-serial converter to get the parallel
output into the serial port of a computer (a free 486 would be
adequate). Write software on the computer which receives characters via
serial and sends them out two parallel ports. (I've used the FreeBSD
operating system for similar printing purposes with great success.)

If one or both printers are more than about fifteen feet from the
computer, hook them up via Ethernet and print servers.

Whether it's practical to do all this depends on the application.
 
Thank you for these suggestions. Unfortunately it's a point of sale
machine that has no expansion options. The need is to have a receipt
printer next to the machine, as well as one in the kitchen (this is a
poor-man's hack of a restaurant application). I definitely need
something that sits outside the computer. And a switch box won't work
because I need it to print at both printers. In my research I've found
evidence of others looking for something like this. I wish it existed!
Thanks for your posts!!!
Click to expand...

I'm assuming this is basically a PC. I think most of this can be dobe
within that.
What ports do the PC and printers have? Many older printers have a
serial port, almost all PCs do.

If you can make your application print to file (either directly or by
redirecting the printer output in Windows or DOS) you could then make
it send one copy to each port, with a printer attached to each. (In
Windows, use PrintFile, <http://www.lerup.com/printfile/> -- it can
do stuff like that with some tweaking.) Also the kitchen printer may
well be too far away for a standard parallel printer cable -- though
I've used ones up to 20 feet long, a serial cable is both cheaper and
more reliable, if slower, though as I imagine it's basically plain
text this will not be noticeable.
 
If you are looking to print every receipt to both printers you might
want to look at our product Print Distributor, see the url below.

Tony Edgecombe
www.frogmorecs.com/ng
Software for printing
 
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