In article <azhTj.10332$EH2.3712@newsfe1-win.ntli.net>, Luis Ortega <lortega@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> I have a classroom with a dozen G5 Mac Pros running Tiger and we want to > allow them to use a couple of A3 photo-quality inkjet printers and a > couple of flatbed scanners. > > I see that the airport base station extreme only has one usb port. > > Is it possible to use one airport extreme base station to connect all of > these peripherals, add airport cards to each Mac Pro, and be able to use > any of the printers or scanners from any of the Macs? > > What other equipment is necessary? > Should we look to buy any specific printers or scanners that will be > more compatible? > Is there some other approach that will work better? > > Thanks for any advice.
You can share printing from any Mac with an Airport card. The printers do not have to be plugged into your base station. You can plug the extra printers into the Macs and set up printer sharing. You'll want to use the Macs that are most often running, however, since the computer does have to be on (not sleeping) to share. This is how I have our home network set up (3 Macs w/a 4th soon + Airport Extreme base station + laser printer + scanner + many hard drives + inkjet printer). Note that the only thing plugged into my base station is my DSL and it's way at the other end of the house.