Re: Using a Belkin Switch to connect a Dumb Terminal w/ an HP Printer.

Hi Mike,

Older twinax terminals would automatically assign a
twinax address to the printer port as soon as it was
enabled in the terminal's configuration. They didn't
check to see if a physical printer was actually
attached to the terminal or not. This could sometimes
lead to twinax address conflicts when the printer port
was accidentally enabled in a terminal's
configuration.

Most of the modern twinax terminals will not activate
a configured printer connection until they can
determine that a printer is attached to their printer
port and that the printer is currently powered on.

It sounds like you are working with this type of
twinax terminal and that the Belkin switch has made
the printer invisible to the twinax terminal. 

If you can find out from the twinax terminal vendor
which signals it monitors to determine whether a
printer is connected or not, you can probably
configure a powered Belkin switch to support the
requirements of the twinax terminal successfully. 

The non-powered switches will not work well because
they physically disable communication between the
printer and the host device when the switch is moved
from A to B or B to A. You would have to set the
Belkin switch to support the twinax terminal and then
power the terminal off and back on every time you
wanted to use the printer with a non-powered Belkin
switch.

HTH

Best Regards,

/Paul
--
Paul Tykodi
E-mail: ptykodi@xxxxxxxxx

>date: Tue, 7 Sep 2004 13:41:40 -0700 (PDT)
>from: Mike Berman <mikeba777@xxxxxxxxx>
>subject: Using a Belkin Switch to connect a Dumb
>Terminal w/ an HP Printer.
>
>
>HI,
>
>I was wondering if this is done normally. I have 2
>users one w/ a PC the other w/ a dumb terminal they
>are next to each other. The Dumb terminal works fine
>when it is connected to the printer. but when I
>added a Belkin switch so they both don't have to
>remove the cables all the time, the printer is not
>printting.
>
>Are there any settings or switches that have to be
>set, or is this a no-no.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Mike


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