Printer driver Olivetti

Well the TB has been running well for awhile and doing everything it should after the upgrade to WIN7 sooooo, I decided to treat it to a present, by chance I found an original Samsonite case that was designed solely for the TB, it has a built in power supply for the TB AND a built in battery/mains powered printer also with a power supply built in, the cooling fan etc is all built in to the case and WOW it is like brand new, it also came with the document folders that attaches to the side of the Samsonite and all in all a real and is a real serious bit of kit., a simple push down on the TB has it rising out of the case on small pedestals, a push back down and it nestles down in a foam compartment...cool. Right, that's the bragging over now to the problem.

The printer works on demo mode so all is well there but I cannot get it to 'talk' to the TB. The cable for the printer is USB one end and parallel the other, all drivers I have found and installed simply do not work. When I plug in the printer the TB recognises it as a 'USB printer' but no other communication will take place, when I try to print a document it gets held in the printer que, I run the trouble shooter and it simply states there is a printer que and it clears, I try again and it all repeats. I appreciate it is an old design printer but for it to have USB cabling I thought it should work without issue. The printer is an Ollivetti but no model number, I gather looking at pictures on the net it is a model P90. The other names on the top of the printer are CONSEL but I get the impression this is the name of the case designer as it is also stamped on the foam insert between the various TB/printer/power supply/fan cut outs.

Any suggestions or an idea where I can get a driver? I am sure it is just a comms issue as all else works great.

Many thanks

Tranquillo

 

Is the printer a parallel printer? I suggest using an parallel printer cable to the parallel port on the Toughbook. Those parallel to usb cable can be a real beast to setup. I have found them to be very inconsistent. If you can avoid that converter cable, it will be easier to install.

 

I do not think any of the ports are parallel on the TB19? There is two serials one male and female for pluging in an extra monitor etc, please advise?

Many thanks for the thought though

Tranquillo

 

Any pictures of the Samsonite case?

 

Did not realize you had a cf 19. Can you try the printer on a computer with a real parallel port?

 

I can almost see you drooling 8>)

I'll sort some later this evening for you.

Tranquillo

 

Sorry mate my fault, I should have pointed that out, I will try and find one somewhere but it seems the parallel port is going west even on newer machines. It will not be long before everything is wifi! When I try it on another machine as per your idea I will get back to you.

Many thanks

Tranquillo

 

@ gnineorknad, 6 of 8 others to follow!

Tranquillo

 

Final 2, please note the lid is not broke it simply lifts off, the locks also prevent the case being opened upside down, as you see the condition is 'as new', a great find I thought?

Tranquillo

 

I'm bloody freaking jealous!!!!
That is one nice find indeed!

 

I agree.....I want one tooooooooooooooooooooo

 

My first thought was to try a new cable because they're only a few euro.
Once when I was looking at the possibility of modifying an A4 scanner to use with a large format camera I found others had already done it. There was a site with a lot of hacks and drivers for scanners, printers & multifunction units.
If you can't find drivers anywhere else search terms around the above might find the site if it still exists.
Nice looking kit - do you need it for printing diagnostics results in the field or something similar?

 

Produkte

Consel was printed on couple items on those pictures. My german is bit rusty so I used Chrome's built-in translator.

I've been on this trade roughly 15 years and I've come across such setup just once. It was a battery-powered Canon inkjet and some Toshiba laptop built into a briefcase. It wasn't any branded system, probably custom built setup.

Another similar was a Canon branded laptop that came with a built-in inkjet printer! It had a 486 cpu

Travelling salesmen, product deliveries. Things that needed papers to be printed and signed since back then no such thing as 3G network did not exist yet and only few people had GPRS capable phones, one couldn't just "email the pdf" afterwards.

 

That IS one nice case.

 

Cornel has three types, manager, service-provider and journalist. Basicly the same idea but with a few different options.

I have a small canon printer, IP100 with a battery (li-ion, good for 100-500 pages printing), and it works very nice. I also have a snapscan from fujitsu, which has no document feeder, but it's really small. Like 3 candy bars long, powered by usb.
The printer, cartridges, charger, scanner, paper and all the cables are in a nice black bag from Fogg (the e-flat).
So I have my office in two bags: one with laptop, papers, sandwich and a can of soda, and the Fogg. Works nicely for me, but the Cornel setup is 1500 times nicer!

What I would like to have is a Volkswagen T4 Westfalia camper. That way I have a completely mobile office and can work where ever I want to.
But these are so expensive that I don't see that happen any time soon.

 

Sorry for the delay in replying, poor intenet where I am staying at the moment. It seems the issue stems from WIN 7 not being around in the mid to late 90's when the case/printer/TB combo was on sale. It also seems I need a driver to basicly make out that my WIN 7 is actually WIN 98 SE? I am not sure about any of this but talking to other people in the know it is just a simple driver/windows compatability issue. The USB to parallel should not be an issue either, soooooeasy to say but soooo difficult to fix!

I do not REALLY need to print whilst out in the field but it would save me time later when I get home and besides who would not want to show off this lovely piece of kit?

Thanks to all who have replied, I have not doubt someone will go 'click here and it will be fixed' such is the skill level found on the site, ( crawling can go a long way right?)

Tranquillo

 

I did not know there were three different 'levels' perhaps mine is management level I mean, it does have Gold release catches

There is no document tray on mine as such but there is a pull up support (sounds like a jock strap) that holds 15 A4 pages and then auto feeds itself, I can test this by requesting 'demo mode' again proving that all is well with the actual printer. Wetfalia.....na 4X4 Landcruiser with roof top tent and annexe.

Thanks for your contribution.

Tranquillo

 

Compatibility mode for the printer driver maybe? Dual boot with a win98 partition and Install open office. Boot to it for any printing needs.

 

I agree Shawn that is a good idea in fact, a lot of the diagnosis software I have runs better in XP however, I have not been able to get into the BIOS and I am unsure if I need too to add a partition?

Tranquillo

 

I did notice this on the site KLF provided the link to:

Email: [email protected]

I didn't see a "support" button but maybe if you asked them they would have a solution?
Never done this myself but I think I'd send it in (google-translated) German with the original English below - or maybe there's an accepted way of doing it?

 

You shouldn't need to enter the bios to change partitions. Lots of software that even does it on the fly, without data loss.

 

I am so jealous. Very nice. I want one.

 

Hi there, I'm new to this forum, but noticed this thread. I have an unused Samsonite Consul case, without the laptop or printer. It is in absolutely mint condition and still has the Samsonite tags on it. It's in brand new condition. I'd be happy to sell it to you as my situation changed and I never got to use it. I'd be delighted for it to go to a good home. I paid (in the UK) £120 for it. I would be happy to post it to Netherlands and would only charge the actual postage cost. Let me know if you're interested. It has a european plug fitting, not UK. There is also an inverter, so you can plug it into a car lighter socket and it converts to 230v. Regards, Dave. PS I am a private individual, I am not a business trying to sell to people and this is the only case I have.

 

Welcome to the forum...Your best bet would be to list it on ebay then come back and post the link here. I really don't want to turn this thread into a BST thread and since you are a new member we do have rules to follow regarding sellling by new members http://forum.notebookreview.com/toughbook-buy-sell-trade-forum/485825-you-must-have-20-posts-order-sell-bst-forum.html so list it on ebay that way everyone will be covered.

 

Thanks for that, I have indeed emailed them and await a reply, when I do I will get back to you.

Thanks again

Tranquillo