How do I print using Farallon Ethermac Printer Adapter

Question

How do I print using Farallon Ethermac Printer Adapter

Hope everyone's doing well. I have a beige G3 Desktop running OS 10.4. I was succesfully printing to an old localtalk printer, the Apple Personal Laserwriter 320 using Farallon's iPrint localtalk to ethernet bridge. We had some flooding here in Houston and my bridge stopped working as a result. The printer still works. I just purchased a very similar product on eBay that I thought was supposed to do the same thing, but it's not working. It's the Farallon EtherMac Printer Adapter. I has a cable that plugs into the localtalk port on the printer and then I plug the adapter to my switch, but my Mac can't see it. The "Link" indicator on the adapter is blinking, which means there's a problem. It's supposed to be steady green. In addition to the place where I plug in my ethernet cable, the adapter has a another port, it's round and has a BNC T-connector coming out of it. I understand you're supposed to terminate these. The illustration in the manual shows the setup that I have where the adapter is hooked up the printer and then to a 10 base T wall jack. In this illustration, the T-connector is removed, which is what I've done. Of course, I'm not plugging it into a wall jack, but into my hub.
Any ideas? Has anyone successfully used this device?
Thanks!

-Felix

G3 PowerMac (beige desktop), Mac OS X (10.3.9), 1Ghz G4, 768MB RAM, 64MB video RAM

Posted on Aug 2, 2006 1:45 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 2, 2006 2:42 PM in response to Felix Arrazolo

If your adapter has both a BNC connector and an 8-pin RJ-45 connector on the Ethernet end, it should be able to use either. The more modern ones have only the RJ-45 jack, and are designated "EtherMac iPrint adapter LT".

To connect to a Hub, switch, or Router/Gateway, you should be using a straight cable. If you look through the clear plastic ends from the non-clip side, at the individual colored wires within, a straight cable has the wires at each end in the same order, a cross-over cable has two pairs swapped.

On the LocalTalk end, if it ends in a Mini DIN8 cable, that should plug directly into your printer's LocalTalk port. If it has a 4-pin phone jack, it uses phoneNet adapters and phone cords. The last port on the last PhoneNet box requires a terminator.

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Answer 2

Aug 2, 2006 2:04 PM in response to Felix Arrazolo

Maybe your older EtherMac Printer Adapter isn't capable of using TCP/IP. I tried to use a Dayna Ethernet bridge(old) to connect to the internet with no success that missed that feature.

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Answer 3

Aug 3, 2006 8:47 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks so much. There's hope afterall. I will look up a straight cable. Hopefull that is the problem. Or maybe it's easier to get the BNC connector. I'm sure some computer stores around here will carry these. If I remove the T from the BNC connector, does that properly terminate that connection?

This adpater has the Mini DIN8 cable that plugs directly to the printer's LocalTalk port.

The one I'm replacing that worked like a charm wat the iPrint adapter and that one had the 4 pin phone jack which I had never before used in my life. I love how this old technology can still work! Thanks so much for the tip. No pun intended. I looked at my cables but I could not make out the swapping that you talked about, but I would think they do have it.

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Answer 4

Aug 3, 2006 12:55 PM in response to Felix Arrazolo

1)I have to correct myself, found the Details about the EtherMac Printer Adapter
Product Details
2)Someone has published how to connect/use this adaper with OSX
Chris Halaska
3)There is no info about this adapter on proxim’s knowledgebase

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Answer 5

Aug 3, 2006 1:17 PM in response to Felix Arrazolo

The BNC connector will be the near-obsolete 10Base2 speed Ethernet. Connect it only if you have coaxial cable strung in your home/office that provides baseband Ethernet service at 10Base2 speeds. This box was issued when the cable war was still in progress -- RJ-45 connectors, category 5, 8-conductor twisted-pair wiring won. BNC connectors lost.

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Answer 6

Aug 3, 2006 1:25 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Is the category 5 the same thing as the "straight cable" that was mentioned earlier?

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Answer 7

Aug 4, 2006 1:57 AM in response to Felix Arrazolo

Short:Yes.
Cat5 Cables are Ethernet-Cables of a specific(good) quality
You may look here for more info
EthernetCables1
Little Theory

Good luck

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