Old hardware with newish smartphone

Community Forum
1

1000004453
10000044534000×3000 1.59 MB
this is an Star Micronics LC10 Dot Matrix Printer (8 bit) that an (older) friend gave me a few years ago, and that has been sitting in the loft, ever since. I managed to get parallel port USB adapter and got it working with my Framework laptop in Zorin 18. And printed from libreoffice. But, when I tried connecting it to my FP5 (with a second USBA to USBC adapter), the FP5 didn’t seem to know what type of device it was talking to (“I know what a printer is but, what is Dot Matrix”?) and the printer definitely didn’t know what a smartphone was! In it’s time (the late 1980’s), phones were very different. If anyone knows how to get these 2 devices working together, or has an idea, do let me know? Perhaps, it is just a crazy idea to try.

4 Likes
2

Maybe a print server running on the Zorin machine to share via CUPS?

2 Likes
3

That is a good idea. I will give it a try. Thanks.

4

great photo and idea

if you have any old micro pcs, gen1 raspbis - those being hooked up via usb and a permanent cups server are a good time investment. On any other linux box cups-browsed can offer the remote printer. Saves the setup time on each machine.
On Android you can use this to discover and send via wifi.

2 Likes
5

I have downloaded the apk and will try it out. Thanks. And the suggestion about setting up a permanent rasp pi print server is also a good one. I already use a pihole installed on a pi zero that is connected most of the time. Could I use the pi zero as a print server as well, or would giving such a basic device 2 jobs to do, be too much for it?

6

not sure about pi zero specs and no clue about system requirements of the print server
but pi hole will give you info about current use of its ressources (in the upper left corner of the admin-GUI? and there´s probably more sophisticated options) so you can check vs. system requirements of the print server - I have my pi hole on a raspi 3B and there is always plenty of ressources left…