T wrote:
On 2020-11-25 14:17, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
On Wed, 25 Nov 2020 at 11:38:06, T wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
Hi All,

I have a machine shop customer with an air gaped
XP computer running Generic CAD. He is running
too many specialty things to upgrade the mess.

Problem: his HP OJ printer quit. He need a new

OJ = OfficeJet, i. e. an inkjet?

Customer was guessing over the phone


color printer. Letter size is fine.

Does it have to be colo(u)r?

America, so it is "color".


You guys know of parallel port, XP friendly
replacement printer you would recommend?

I think the parallel port is more likely to be the difficulty than the
XP compatibility these days?

Ya. No fooling.


Many thanks,
-T


No USB port. Still uses floppy disks. This thing is OLD.

Thank you for the tips!

Maybe a printer that takes a Jetdirect card ?

But somehow I doubt they still make the parallel port version.

Since the machine is running WinXP, you could stick
a USB2 card in the machine. This assumes some slots
are still available. But, will anyone make software that
installs on WinXP ? That's going to be the tough part.

Maybe stick an Ethernet card on the air-gapped WinXP machine
and connect the Ethernet to a switch, then from the switch
to the Ethernet port on the printer. With some luck, maybe
there's a printing standard that doesn't need print dialogs.
(Can you send a PDF to a printer ?)

Sorry, but all these solutions "creak and groan" a lot.
It's not going to end well.

And I don't know if printer server boxes serve any
translation functions you could take advantage of.

Paul