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by payne92 2080 days ago
Related: I have a HP 4000 with duplex, which is an absolute unit (beast) of a small workgroup laser printer. It's 20+yrs old, still going strong and parts are easy to get.

BUT, it's compute bound with modern print jobs, and is missing modern protocols like Bonjour.

What if someone open sourced a legacy printer? I'd love to re-brain this printer.
2 comments
zdw 2080 days ago
See about replacing the network card on the printer, or updating its firmware. Newer firmwares frequently support Bonjour, and have various security updates.

Replaceable NIC in printers are pretty great, especially when you can buy them for 1/10th of original cost on the used market.

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payne92 2080 days ago
They stopped manufacturing the HP LaserJet 4000 over 21 years ago, and the jetdirect EIO network card (J3111A) not long after that.

If there is a newer network card or firmware that supports this printer, I’d love to hear about it.

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zdw 2080 days ago
The 620n and 635n EIO cards support Bonjour: https://h10057.www1.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provision... and http://www.hp.com/ecomcat/hpcatalog/specs/provisioner/99/J79...
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payne92 2078 days ago
Awesome, thanks! I didn't realize that the newer EIO cards were so backward compatible.
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floatboth 2080 days ago
Put a different server in front of it instead of letting it hang on the network by itself?

I have a relatively modern LaserJet that does IPP (and Bonjour) over WiFi, but it doesn't do 5GHz WiFi, it doesn't do IPv6, so I have it plugged into a server over USB instead, and the server running CUPS exposes it on the network.

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payne92 2080 days ago
I thought about that. The real issue I’m running into is page rendering time: I think the processor on it is only 50 or 80 MHz, and modern software generates some pretty elaborate print files.

I’ve been meaning to explore server-side rendering, but haven’t got that far down my todo list.

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