I like Rick's answer because the scanner and zip drive that I have require
them to both be connected to the computer at boot time before they will be
recognized.  In other words, if they aren't connected at boot, they won't
work unless you shut down, switch the devices and then reboot.  After
struggling with this several weeks I got a SIIG parallel card and connected
as Rick suggested.  Works great!

The only problem that I've encountered was with trying to print a large
document and trying to access the zip drive at the same time. As an
afterthought, there are dual add-in parallel port cards, but you will
probably run out of IRQ's if you try to make them all ECC or EPP ports.  I
had to make one of the ports a standard LPT port with no IRQ assigned to
make it work

Doug

At 2/24/01 02:17 PM, William Hornkohl wrote:

>I've seen pictures of switchboxes but haven't had any experience with
>them. Could it be that simple to get a switchbox and hook the printer,
>scanner and zip drive to it and have it work. Only having one working at a
>time I don't think would be a problem. Or would we be better off looking
>for an ISA add-in card that would give us an additional parallel port? My
>experience has been that any thing that looks simple usually isn't.

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