Networking Mac & PC to use old PC peripherals

[powerdave]

Hi all,
I'm considering buying a PowerBook since the revised specs came out a week or two ago. I just have to decide if the price of the 15" is justifiable.. everything about the 12" PB is fine apart from the screen size.

Anyway, another concern I have is that I've got some old PC hardware that I know won't work with the Mac (a Canon printer/scanner/fax dealie that uses a parallel connection, and a serial-port ISDN terminal adaptor we use for the net).
I don't really want to have to replace this hardware cause the PowerBook is already bankruptin' me. But however!

The end result I'm looking for is to be able to access the internet on the Powerbook and use the printer, although I wouldnt mind just saving files and transferring them to print, tis no big deal.

Is there much hassle in connecting the Powerbook to the PC? Is using an ethernet cable to connect the two directly the way to go?

Any other insight or tips would be great.
Thanks!

 

[gekko513]

The end result I'm looking for is to be able to access the internet on the Powerbook and use the printer, although I wouldnt mind just saving files and transferring them to print, tis no big deal.

Is there much hassle in connecting the Powerbook to the PC? Is using an ethernet cable to connect the two directly the way to go?

You'll need an ethernet cable with the wires crossed (don't remember what it's called) to connect the PC and the PowerBook directly.

It may be an even better solution to get a small switch/hub. It'll cost you IEP 25-40 for a nice little 4 or 5 port switch that will let you connect 4 or 5 computers with regular ethernet cables.

I suppose you want to set it up so that you can share the internet connection from the PC with the PowerBook. I'm not sure exactly how you do that, but it should be possible with a little search in WinXP help.

Printer sharing across your network should also be no problem.

 

[mateybob]

You'll need an ethernet cable with the wires crossed (don't remember what it's called) to connect the PC and the PowerBook directly.

crossover cable

to share the internet you just need to open the connection properties in windows and click internet sharing... everythings works automatically from there.. ive done it myself... i dont know about the printer though...

 

[IrishGold]

Is there much hassle in connecting the Powerbook to the PC? Is using an ethernet cable to connect the two directly the way to go?

Any other insight or tips would be great.
Thanks!

Have a firewire connection on the PC?

If so, it would be much easier.

1 cable - bam, just connect the two and you can share any other connection.

 

[phonemonkey]

maybe a router would be appropriate? that way you could hook the parallel cable from the printer to the windows machine, turn on printer sharing and there would be little problem with sharing as they would be on the same subnet as provided by the ip addresses from the router. internet connection would be a lot faster as well because the computer processor would not have to worry about 2 internet connections.

 

[gekko513]

This multi-purpose router seems to be exactly what you need.

It has a serial port to connect it to an ISDN adapter (which you already got). It has a parallel port to connect to your printer and work as a print-server. I'm not sure how that works with the scanner functionality though. It has 3 ethernet ports to put your computers in a network, and it is a wireless access point that will let you access all the good stuff when you get your airport extreme card.

 

[phonemonkey]

This multi-purpose router seems to be exactly what you need.

.

sweet, nice to see some manuf. are still supporting serial and parallal. that is exactly what is needed, and will keep you from messing with printer sharing.
phonemonkey