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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DismalScientist who wrote (9828)	1/2/2000 8:22:00 PM
From: Howard R. Hansen	Respond to of 14778

I assume I need a USB printer or is there some kind of device which I can connect to the USB port and emulate a parallel port for my existing printer. I have never seen or heard of a device for connecting a printer with a parallel interface to the USB. I hope I didn't lead you astray when I said a USB printer uses DMA. Because going to a printer that uses DMA, only solves a small part of the problem. The biggest hang up is the printer function in Windows 98. Windows uses a lot of CPU cycles to convert characters to bits. Microsoft did this to give Windows a "what you see is what you get" capability. But it came at a price. Printing in Windows uses many more CPU cycles than DOS did. In addition I notice when printing what is on the screen when using Netscape the data is downloaded a second time. This adds another delay. I expect to install Windows 2000 sometime soon. I wonder if that will make any difference. It will make a difference in the sense in Windows 2000 you can set the priority of a task, program. This is a big improvement over Windows 98. I suggest you wait and see if Windows 2000 gives you better control of your computer before buying a USB printer. In the meantime if the delay is to onerous when running Netscape you could use Netscape to save text to a file or use a screen grabber to save graphic images to a file. Then print the files latter.

To: DismalScientist who wrote (9828)	1/7/2000 11:17:00 PM
From: Howard R. Hansen	Respond to of 14778

Alan here is some data I took to see how printing with a printer with a parallel interface and with a printer with a USB interface affects the performance of a computer. I used a crude method to measure performance, the length of time it takes to scroll a long document one line at a time. This was done by placing the mouse cursor on the single line scroll icon and holding the left mouse button down. Results obtained when not printing. Length of time required to scroll document = 9 seconds. Scrolling was smooth. Results obtained when printing with a printer with a parallel interface. Lenght of time required to scroll document 26 seconds. Scrolling was erratic. Time required to print first page of document = 1 minute and 37 seconds. Time required to print 7 page document = 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Results obtained when printing with a printer with a USB interface. Lengtn of time required to scroll document = 10 seconds. Occaisionally the scrolling was uneven. Time required to print first page of document = 1 minute and 37 seconds. Time required to print a 7 page document = 5 minutes and 30 seconds. The tests were made when printing a document from within Netscape, using Windows 98 and using a Hewlett Packard 812C printer that had both a parallel and USB interface. Conclusion: Printing with a printer with a USB interface only slightly degrades the responsiveness of a computer to mouse and keyboard input. Where as printing with a printer with a parallel interface significantly degrades the responsiveness of a computer to mouse and keyboard input.