Printers

1. Walk with Those Scissors! Don't Snack Before Dinner! Share with Your Friends!
2. Sharing Printers = Saving Money
3. A Neat Trick, Cheap Too

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Walk with Those Scissors! Don't Snack Before Dinner! Share with Your Friends!
From Catalog 38, page 51

Many small and medium sized offices that I visit share a common problem. That problem is that they fail to share their printers.

I see people carrying a floppy from one machine to another because they want a high quality laser's output one time and a long continuous paper listing another. And while that is bad, the other scenario is, in my opinion, even worse.

When everyone in the office wants and has their own laser printer, generally there isn't a printer that can do cheap draft printing or listings. What a waste!

You don't need a network to share printers. Using an inexpensive telephone-like cabling and a few simple converters, you can quickly provide up to 16 people access to one printer.

And keep in mind, the proximity of the printers to the printing computer can be as much as a fifth of a mile away. I don't know how that can help you, but I've encountered more than a few people who wished that noisy *&%$# printer was in another room.

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Sharing Printers = Saving Money
From Catalog 34, page 50

Large organizations and businesses on the forefront of technology tend to install workgroup networks and have dedicated support personnel who maintain them. In this environment, it is natural to have and use printer sharing.

It isn't so obvious however, when computers and printers are added in onesies and twosies within a smaller organization. The momentum of earlier configurations just naturally makes each new user think they should have the same or better equipment than the person before them. STOP! Get a handle on your expenses. Just because one user has a laser printer, you don't have to get one for each user. In fact, a far less expensive dot matrix printer might be just the ticket for long listings and use-once printouts.

When you consider the limited amount of time most printers actually spend printing, you might consider as few as three printers for up to 16 users. I would suggest you at least consider a mix of one dot matrix with a wide carriage for long printouts and use once-documents, one laser printer for high quality letters and graphics, and one color printer for impressive overheads or attention grabbing correspondence.

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A Neat Trick, Cheap Too
From Catalog 29, page 50

After playing a little with our new auto switch box for parallel printers, I was amazed to find that I'm still living in the dark ages.

For about three years, I have had one printer and two computers at home. For the first couple of months after I built the second computer, I used the old "sneaker net" to print data from the second machine. It isn't such a big deal, since I only print from the second machine once in a while. Later I hooked the two machines together with LapLink, and could again print (with relative ease) from either machine. But now, I'm going to (auto) switch.

Using the auto switchbox is easy. Just hook up both computers and a printer, then send a command to print from either computer. If you try to print from the second before the first job finishes, the second computer will be told to wait because the printer is busy. When the first job finishes, and eight seconds of idle time expire, the second job can begin.

For most efficient use, I recommend you use a background printer program. If you share a printer, or would like to, price is no longer a prime consideration. This sure beats buying a second printer so that two printers can spend 95%+ of their time doing nothing but waiting.

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