Help needed with printer settings for wired ethernet connection

Old Phaser models may becoming more and more difficult to use, but you can give this a try.

1. Configure the printer via front panel to use TCP/IP and enable DHCP if it's supported. If not then you will need to configure an IP address for the printer together with your local network's mask, and gateway IP address. Except for the first the others will be provided by opening Network preferences to see what those settings are. The printer's IP address needs to be set somewhere within the range of IP addresses your router provides locally.

2. You need the PPD file required for your printer. If you have the Phaser driver installer you can use it to install the PPD or you can extract the specific PPD from the installer package. This part is tricky because I don't know where you may find the driver now if you don't have the installer. The older installers can be accessed through the Finder by selecting the package then CTRL- or RIGHT-click and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu. You can then rummage through the package to search for the PPD for your printer. Then navigate to the /Library/Printers/PPD/Contents/Resources/ folder and drop the PPD file inside.

3. Open Print & Fax preferences and click on Add [+] to add a new printer. Click on the IP icon in the toolbar. Select Line Printer Daemon - LPD from the Protocol drop down menu. Input the IP address you assigned the printer in the Address field. You can file in the optional fields that follow. Then from the Print Using drop down menu locate the listing for your printer and select it.

If you have DHCP support then give it a try. When you add the printer you should find it listed in the opening printer listing. However, if you don't then revert to a fixed IP address and use the TCP/IP configuration menu on the front panel of the printer. Consult the printer's user manuals for help with the configuration. I'm giving you suggestions based on my old Phaser 560 model.

You don't need EtherTalk so there's no need to enable it. Just enable TCP/IP.

Connecting to a switch is not a problem as long as the switch is connected to a router. If you don't have one then I suggest you get one. Connecting a switch to your cable/DSL model without a router is not going to work properly if at all.

If you use another computer to share an internet connection then I'm not sure if that will work either. Never tried it. But by default Macs assign NAT addresses within the 10.0.1.2 to 10.0.1.255, so you need to put the printer's IP address within that range. Stay away from low numbers because they are usually assigned to other computers. You can use 10.0.1.192, for example.

If the three computers are sharing the internet connection, they are doing it through the Airport Base Station, which is the router. That there is a switch just adds additional ports to the router. The Base Station is assigning addresses as the DHCP server.

You should not need to assign an address to the printer if it is using DHCP. It should be assigned one from the Base Station. However, if you do assign an address to it, it should have the same first three numbers as the address of the router, which you can find by looking at the Network settings on any of the computers. If 10.0.1.106 is a proper number, the router address, which you find under the TCP/IP tab in Advanced Settings for the Ethernet connection in the Network control pane, should be 10.0.1.X, where X is usually 1 or 0. If it is not, you cannot connect until you change the address to something that has the first three numbers the same.

There may be other settings needed:

IP of printer - 10.0.1.106
IP of Router or Gateway - 10.0.1.1
Network Mask - 255.255.255.0
IP of DNS - 10.0.1.1

I do not fully recall all the TCP/IP entries the printer may ask for, but you need to consult the printer's manual for full configuration instructions. If you configure a fixed IP address you must let the printer know in the configuration to use manual addressing. Otherwise you are using DHCP so the printer gets an IP address from your network router.