Old HP Printer & Win XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike

I have an old hp deskjet 855c that I plugged into a P-IV system running
WinXP-SP3. Despite being a fossil the printer installed and works fine but I
can't enable bi-directional printing. Parallel cable, bios settings,
everything is fine there. But the 'Enable Bi-Directional Support' in the
Printers/Properties/Ports is grayed out no matter what I do. Is there any way
to get it to do bi-directional printing? Or is just too old and WinXP doesn't
feel like dealing with it?
 
Mike,

That is the typical generic Windows driver. The HP web site does not
show a newer one from HP.

I have a slightly newer printer, a 932C, which does have a bells and
whistles HP driver for XP. It does not have a newer one for Vista,
and the generic Windows Vista driver looks just like your generic
Windows XP driver.
 
Mike,

That is the typical generic Windows driver. The HP web site does not
show a newer one from HP.

I have a slightly newer printer, a 932C, which does have a bells and
whistles HP driver for XP. It does not have a newer one for Vista,
and the generic Windows Vista driver looks just like your generic
Windows XP driver.
Click to expand...

Hey Alan,

Yeah, it's using the generic driver that's already in Windows. I was all over
the HP site, googled for drivers or anything that would work, and found
nothing. It's just so old, can't even go into the registry and do anything
there. Oh well, it works and still prints great.
 
Are you sure it's not doing bi-directional printing?
Bi-directional printing is a function of the printer's
firmware, not printer driver, although some printer
driver apps may be able to suppress bi-directional
printing on demand.

The bi-directional support you are referring to is the
bi-directional communications on the parallel port.
The clue is that the setting is in Printers/Properties/Ports.
Have you checked your PC's BIOS settings to make
sure the bi-directional, or enhanced setting is enabled
for the parallel port. It's usually uni-directional by
default.
Click to expand...



If it were printing in both directions, believe me I'd know. I've been
through all the port settings in the bios, which on the system it's plugged
into are SPP, EPP, ECP, ECP+EPP, and Normal. All but Normal supports bi-
directional printing. EPP & ECP will print nothing but garbage characters
when set to either one. SPP mode (which it's currently set to) prints
normal but not bi-directional. The cable is a standard Belkin IEEE 1284
compliant. I don't know what else to try, BIOS, Printer Properties,
Registry.... What else is there to try?
 
SPP is the standard printer port, which is uni-directional only,
i.e., from PC to printer. It is basically the old Centronics standard.
Bi-directional in reference to the parallel port means data can flow
from the PC to the the printer, and from the printer to the PC. In
this context it has nothing to do with the print head operation.
I would assume that Normal is bi-directional at normal speed.
EPP and above are high speed bi-directional standards, which
your printer obviously aren't compatible with. My old HP 970
Deskjet was happy with EPP or ECP. ECP allows DMA transfers
to the parallel port.

Your printer should operate normally at the SPP setting. It just
wouldn't be able to send any status messages back to the printer
driver, such as low ink, paper jam, etc. If the paper advances
slightly with each head movement in either direction, the printer
is printing bi-directionally.
Click to expand...



Ok, that would explain why there's no status message things for low ink, etc.
or any related settings in the Properties tabs. So this bi-directional thing
has nothing to do with the actual printing in both directions - printheads go
across the paper and print, printheads come back and print - which is what I
was trying to get it to do. Seems I had used the wrong term to describe what
I was trying to do. :-)
 
Glad we got that sorted out. Same terms referring to different things
can be confusing. It looks like HP never gave general distribution to
drivers for your printer, for Win2k or XP. The drivers went to MS for
inclusion in the OSs. If you look up the Win2k driver for the 855c on
the HP site, they say the driver in Win2k is the latest one, and
basically the same for XP.
Click to expand...


That HP site is strange. I thought it odd that the only driver file download
for my printer is for Win3.11 / Win95 but the last release for it was in 99.
But on the select OS list Win98 isn't even listed. Of course selecting
everything above Win95 just tells you there's no files to download because
the drivers are included in the OS. And that so called 'manual' is..., I
don't know what it is but it's not the user guide or spec sheet.
 
The best approach is to check HP's website under support and see if they
have an updated driver for that printer which will work with XP. If
not, you may be able to use an in box printer driver within XP, but it
may require some experimenting. Try some similar HP inkjet printers
from around the same time period.

It may indeed be that the full feature set for that printer was not
implemented in the newer XP in box driver set. Occasionally, someone
will have hacked a driver with more broad features and offered it on the
web.

Art



If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
 
You may be correct that he is confusing bi-directional data
communication (the ability of the printer and computer to speak to one
another in both directions, such that the printer can speak back to the
computer (such as telling it how much ink is left in the cartridge).
With bi-directional printing, we are speaking of the ability of teh
printer to print information when the head moves in either direction,
left to right, or right to left.

However, it is also true that a printer driver may be lacking the
necessary codes to activate a specific printers feature, and possibly
the XP driver is missing soem of the feature set, even if the printer
does have the ability in the firmware to do so.


Art

If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
 
Ignore my other suggestion since you already tried it, but also look
into what DMA channel its using . Its either DMA 1 or DMA 3. Sometimes
this conflicts with a Soundcard or other addin card that you are using.
Also if the motherboards bios is set for Plug And Play, change it to Not
PNP. This forces the motherboards bios to control DMA and IRQ sharing
and the like and doesnt allow XP to do it. Maybe XP is being retarded in
the way it is handling dome IRQ or DMA conflicts.
Click to expand...


There's no conflicts with using any of the I/O, IRQ, or DMA settings. I went
through them all, including the PnP settings. Maybe it's just this printer
simply can't handle printing in both directions, that and the generic windows
drivers are crap. It works, it prints quite well, which is suprising for it's
age. It's just painfully slow, and I have no way of knowing when the ink
tanks run low until I go to print something and they run out in the middle of
printing. :-)

Oddly enough, I found the original install disks (as in floppy) for
Win3.1/95. Too bad they'll never work in XP.
 
The best approach is to check HP's website under support and see if they
have an updated driver for that printer which will work with XP. If
not, you may be able to use an in box printer driver within XP, but it
may require some experimenting. Try some similar HP inkjet printers
from around the same time period.

It may indeed be that the full feature set for that printer was not
implemented in the newer XP in box driver set. Occasionally, someone
will have hacked a driver with more broad features and offered it on the
web.

Art



If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
Click to expand...


There's nothing beyond win3.1/95 on the HP website. Everything above that
it just says it's included in the OS. I did a fair amount of searching and
really found nothing. Except for those annoying sites that will try to
trick you into thinking you have a nasty virus/malware on your system and
they must do a complete scan. A couple of other sites, but you couldn't pay
me enough to download any kind of third-party software from some weird site
in East Crapistan. :-)
 
Fair enough, I was looking for some drivers today as well, and
encountered the fake virus scan sites. I sued this as a object lesson
for my wife who is still relatively neophyte with the internet, to show
here how human engineering can "trick" people into downloading a virus
onto their system when none exists just by creating the illusion that
one's computer is already infected and requires a scan an cleaning program.

There may be an extra disk full of printer drivers provided with XP
which may not normally be used for general installation. Worth looking for.

Art



If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
 
Fair enough, I was looking for some drivers today as well, and
encountered the fake virus scan sites. I sued this as a object lesson
for my wife who is still relatively neophyte with the internet, to show
here how human engineering can "trick" people into downloading a virus
onto their system when none exists just by creating the illusion that
one's computer is already infected and requires a scan an cleaning
program.

There may be an extra disk full of printer drivers provided with XP
which may not normally be used for general installation. Worth looking
for.

Art



If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
Click to expand...

When you've been on the internet as long as I have you've seen it all. The
only thing missing from my search was the Nigerian prince with the tragic
past and an inheritance he couldn't get to without my immediate
intervention with lots of my cash. :-)

I didn't think to look on my XP disc or on their download site for
anything. I guess it couldn't hurt to check it out.
 
Mike said:
When you've been on the internet as long as I have you've seen it all. The
only thing missing from my search was the Nigerian prince with the tragic
past and an inheritance he couldn't get to without my immediate
intervention with lots of my cash. :-)
Click to expand...
That one is headed for President Obama's blackberry, which he refuses to
give up. Imagine! His security advisors actually think they can make it
"safe" for him to use.

TJ
 
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