Newish Apple Mac With old equipment

[kpowell911]

Hi, Basically, My dad is an old school graphic designer, And has had his apple mac, zip drive and a2 printer for years and years, This set up was close to £10k when he bought it, Thats how long he has had it.

Anyway He has upgraded his mac to a 2004 model, Which is all usb but wants to use all his old printer scanner and zip drive. This new mac is obviously all USB but his printer and zip drive have the following connections:

Anyone know where I can get him some new cables with these connections at one and end and USB at the other? I doubt it is even worth me attempting to go to PC world for these? Thing is i dont know what they are called, As Im only a "young un" and USB is the only thing i know

Thanks in advance

 

[Tom]

You can plug them in, but they ain't gonna work.

OS x panther/tiger wont support them.

Actually it might as it has back-wards compatibility.
You need a usb to parallel cable x2 http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl...a=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Looks like the printer has an ADB port so you could try this
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?quicklinx=TQQ
(i know you cant actually buy it its just a ref)


This is the zip drive driver
https://iomega-eu-en.custhelp.com/c...i4xNyZwX2N2PSZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

[kpowell911]

Thanks so i can use this for the printer?

http://www.blueunplugged.com/p.aspx?p=121210

 

[kpowell911]

sorry cant edit but can i just buy 2 of them? 1 for the printer 1 for the zip?

 

[kpowell911]

Meh i ordered that and its the wrong one, That one screws on, The one i need has metal prongs on the printer to keep it in place.

Back to drawing board lol

 

[Daz]

Printer is Centronics.

Zip drive is SCSI.

Centronics goes to a Parallel connection, so that should be OK.

Zip drive won't connect to USB.. no adapters to go from USB -> SCSI.

You'd be much better off at buying new stuff.. heh.

I had one of those Zip drives at school.. Heh, Old stuff. Seriously, it's WAY too much effort to get them working on modern hardware.. just get new bits.

 

[Rich]

I reckon you could pick up the usb version of the Zip drive for a reasonable cost on ebay, I have one lying in the draw at work, not sure why you would want to use one 100mb or 250mb worth of storage is pointless these days!

As Daz says you better of buying new kit as things have moved on - for example the printer - any current cheap A2 printer will blow it into the weeds. Recently chucked a printer, scanner and various old drives that where said to have cost circa 50K when first purchased, but compared to the results todays 100 quid scanner and 300 quid inkjet there was no point using them.

 

[kpowell911]

He picked up a USB Zipdrive for £10. He works with DVD now, But he has archived worked that he needs access to from the early 90's! He even has some syquests, He has circa 500 Zip drives full of stuff so he finds using these easier. However his new stuff is on external HD/DVD.

Ive tried to get him to buy a new printer, But he doesnt want to upgrade, His printer is actually an A1, And he doesnt think he will get an A1 one cheap enough. He has just upgraded to an A1 laminator which was silly money too.

 

[kpowell911]

Oh and thanks for the help so far guys

 

[Daz]

You need a parallel port for the new Mac then.

Then it's just a standard parallel -> centronics cable which is needed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port

 

[Rich]

The main problem you will have even if you get the printer connected is finding a rip for it that works in OS X. The main reason we had to chuck away an Epson A2 was that there was no rip available for it.

In your dads line of work it will be fine if you want to print from Photoshop direct for example - but as soon as you start throwing in Vector files and tying to print straight out of Quark/Indesign the hurdles will come.

 

[Daz]

Yea, like we said, please get a new printer..

Heh.

 

[kpowell911]

How much is an A2 printer going to be now though?

 

[wozzaa]

For a decent one £1000+ easily. Cheap ones you can pick up for £600 and under.

 

[Daz]

Print A4 and Sellotape? :rasp:

 

[kpowell911]

Right, We needed to print some pretty minor stuff for tomorrow, So we went and bought a bog standard inkjet all in one, An Epson Stylus SX105. This apparently works with our operatign system (10.4.9. OS X Tiger.

We have installed it, The scanner works fine, But the fucker wont print! It printed the test head allignment page, But if we try and print something from Quark, Photoshop or even Firefox, It just comes up with the epson status program, goes to 100% and then the job goes into the completed jobs folder, But nothing actually coems out of the printer!

Any ideas.
Oh and PC FTW!