The Zip parallel port supports printers on the pass-through
connector; other parallel port devices may or may not work.
This problem exists because computer parallel ports were not
originally designed for devices other than printers. If you
try placing a device other than a printer on the Zip pass-through, or place the Zip drive on another device's pass-through, there are no guarantees that it will work
correctly.
In the future there will be a standard for daisy-chaining
devices on the parallel port; when this standard is
implemented, Iomega will also conform to it. In the mean
time, here are some hints that may help the operation of
your Zip drive and other parallel port devices.
* If you are running in Windows 3.1 or in a Window's DOS
box and are seeing performance problems with your
printer or with other devices that you are trying to
place on the Zip pass-through, remove ZipWatch from
your Windows Startup folder and restart Windows.
ZipWatch periodically wakes the Zip drive up and checks
its status; when the Zip drive wakes up, the Zip pass-through is temporarily disabled and this will interfere
with the operation of the device connected to the Zip
pass through connector. This should not affect
printers other than to slow them down a tiny bit, but
may interfere with other pass-through devices.
* Some Print Cache programs may conflict with the
parallel port Zip drive. If you experience problems
printing, and Print Cache is already on your system,
disable the audio warning messages for both Windows and
DOS using the reinstall procedure in the Print Cache
manual. If this still does not resolve the problem,
please contact your Print Cache Software Technical
Support.
* If you have other parallel port devices and they will
not work on the Zip pass-through, or the Zip will not
work on their pass-through, you may want to think about
adding an extra parallel port to your computer by
adding an additional I/O card to your computer.
* If you are seeing problems when you boot your computer,
and you are powering ON your Zip drive before turning
your computer on, try powering them at the same time by
hooking them to the same power strip and applying power