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How do you set up an iBook on an HP2100 printer?
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 / Printing
Hi Jacob,
Looked high and low through the net for months if not years…no one seems to have a good answer on how to set up an iBook G4 1.33 (via airport card) or a Sawtooth (via cat 5) to successfully print to an HP2100 or HP4500N connected to a network. Do you have any suggestions? I usually wind up getting the post script (?)errors of multiple pages of odd, meaningless text….thanks in advance!!!
Mark
Until recently we used a 2100TN as a primary printer here at PowerMax. We still have a 2200DN in use in our returns department. It is hard to kill those HP Laser Jets and if speed is not an determining factor, the old units can still hold their own. The main thing is to make sure to have the printers connected to your network via Ethernet and then add them as AppleTalk printers. You can also add them as a LPR printer if you assign them fixed IP addresses on your network. The nice thing about the JetDirect internal print servers is they have had their firmware kept up-to-date by HP and they have a nice web interface. HP still sells legacy parts if your printers are missing the JetDirect module (J3111-69001).
Here’s Apple’s support page on adding a printer to your printer list in OSX.
One potential problem could be with the router you are using. Some routers will block AppleTalk traffic. You should check your router’s website to see if AppleTalk is a supported protocol. If it is not supported then you may need to setup the printers as LPR printers.
Hope this helps,
Jacob


October 8th, 2009 at 10:15 am
I have a HP 5MP set up with an ethernet AppleTalk adapter. It connects to my hub and on to my G5 tower running OS 10.5
Using shared printers, my wifes’ iMac 24″ could use it.
After I put 10.6 on her iMac, I found out AppleTalk is no longer supported! So now she has to share the 5MP thru my G5 using Bonjour. Fortunately, or not, I can’t put 10.6 on the G5 because it does not support it.