• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

IBM APTIV RUNNING WIN 95

oldgreywolf

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2021
Messages
48
Location
North Yorkshire
I am looking on line for a parallel printer that comes with win 95 drivers. Apparently HP do not have 95 drivers. I want a printer that I can be sure will run on the Aptiva with win 95 without having to mess too much with stuff. Any advice out there chap's?
 
I really don't think that HP printers don't have Win95 drivers. What has happened is that HP has taken most of its old stuff offline. Exactly which HP printer are you trying to use?
 
Hi Chuck, it is a deskjet 3733 USB connector and it has drivers for xp and 98 on CD can't use it, so looking for a retro parallel that can run in 95, no joy so far. Thought about a USB 2 card to fit in a slot but no guarantee it will work. Then there is a chance that a new installation of win 98/xp could work? Or find a printer that was common for running with the aptiva back in the day, rare and expensive, still looking....also the Aptiva network connection is dial up. So can't get on line with it
 
Any reason that you're wedded to 95 and not 98SE? You could certainly install a USB card for that.
Also, you could check for laser printers--the old HP Deskjets were horrible. Many of the lasers had parallel interfaces. Looking over at my printer here, a Brother HL5040, it has both USB and parallel interfaces and it's been chunking away for years. New, it cost something like $100.
 
Thanks for the info Chuck going to see if I can get disks with 98se to install then hopefully run a laser printer through USB 2 card ports and or parallel, I have two USB 1.1 ports installed but they are no use at all, maybe for a mouse
 
The USB 1.1 ports will move data faster than the parallel ports connected to a printer so give them a try under 98SE. The earliest USB ports didn't always function correctly but if the Aptiva is new enough for a mouse to be reliable, other USB devices have a good chance of working.
 
I am looking on line for a parallel printer that comes with win 95 drivers. Apparently HP do not have 95 drivers. I want a printer that I can be sure will run on the Aptiva with win 95 without having to mess too much with stuff. Any advice out there chap's?
"without having to mess too much with stuff. Any advice out there chap's?"

Hi @oldgreywolf , I hope you don't think this is flippant. But my advice is to re-assess your position. In my experience, I don't get much to work on this old stuff without 'messing' around a fair amount. If you have not tried it yet it is difficult to say. I get that you want to "be sure" it will will work with your Aptiva with Win95. But that will take a lot of research to narrow down the models that IBM confirmed will work, if such a list even exists. But I would start there. Look for contemporary printers that were sold by IBM dealers at around the same time as your computer was sold. Then consider if there are "compatible" models of printers by other manufactures at around the same time.

I would suggest that any "Postscript" compatible printer with a Parallel/Centronics connection would be a good bet to work on almost anything.

Some full specs on your rig may also help. Maybe we can make better recommendations if we knew exactly what the hardware is.

My Windows 95 printers were usually lasers or dot matrix.

Seaken
 
I'm having a deja-vu moment because there was a thread like this a while ago.

A DeskJet 3733 is way too new to support Windows 95, even if you updated to a version of 95 with USB support and found a USB card compatible with Windows 95. Back then a 600 series DeskJet or similar would of been pretty darn popular. I saw those in use up to the late 2000's because ink refills were very cheap.
 
I'm running my HL5040 with a LInksys Wifi adapter, so no wire-connected PC. Used by both Linux and WIndows systems scattered around. I think my Fire HD Android tablet can also use it. I long ago gave up on the idea of a printer for each machine--I can select any one of several printers from any machine. There are times that I want to use the big Xerox Docuprint, for example, to print 11x14" duplexed copies--just a matter of selecting it from the menu of available printers.
 
Wow, that looks really neat! I have an old Aopen PC that I found in the back of an antique store. So when I saw you are using an Aopen mouse, I got exited for a second!
 
Back
Top