Parallel port through the network?

[Evan Leibovitch]

Hey all. This is a weird one.

A client is using an old mutant of Business Basic on an almost-as-old Unix
box. I've got them set up doing most of the printing through CUPS but
there's a problem.

They were used to a feature of the Basic that allowed them to write
directly to /dev/lpt1 (ie, the parallel port) and bypass the traditional
SVR3 Unix print spooler. This allowed very fine ability to start and stop,
even on large runs. While they like most of the network printing, they
miss this feature on networked printers.

Is there any way that I can set up a device (yes, it's actually looking
for a device, you can't give it a file or program to pipe to) that would
take its input and simply rifle the data over to the printer residing at a
specific IP address?

I'm looking right now into the possibility of using a named pipe (with a
daemon running that listens to the pipe -- but any other suggestions are
welcome.

Last resort is a number of very long parallel printer cables. I recall
Parallel extenders/boosters that allowed you to use regular phone cable
for distances longer than parallel cables would normally support -- but I
don't know if they're still being made.

The printers are Printronix band printers -- the network ones are bring
connected using DLink print servers to their parallel ports.

Any help is appreciated. They are looking to move the whole thing from
Business Basic to a LAMP platform but the printing need is immediate.


- Evan


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