The Best Laid Plans, and all like that

I'm sad.  I have to give up my long-standing Dancing Bear Network.  Let me explain.  You know the old expression -- that it's not how well the bear dances, but that he dances at all. Well, my bear danced quite well, thank you.

Until very recently, I had a network that centered around an aging AirPort Base Station, a PowerPC 8100/100A/V, a LaserWriter 4/600 PS (LocalTalk-only), and a couple of PowerBooks.  To print from a PowerBook, the signal went through the ether to the AirPort Base Station, out the LAN port to a hub to the 8100, thru a piece of software called LocalTalk Bridge, out the printer port, over PhoneNet, to the LaserWriter.  Viola!  The Printed Page!  Happy web-surfing.  Happy e-mailing. Happy Dancing Bear!

Well, recently my PowerBook G4 was stolen.  I replaced it with a MacBook Pro.  Sadly, the MacBook Pro was singularly unhappy trying to talk to the network.  The internet connection kept dropping.  So did the connection to the printer.  The MacBook had to be within 10 feet of the Base Station to operate with any sort of reliability.  *sigh*

In researching the problem, I came to find out that the old Base Station had an output of 15 dBm, but all those that came later had an output of 20 dBm.  So, I got a TimeCapsule -- an AirPort Base Station with a built-in hard drive (to facilitate backups, to share, etc).  Happy, happy!  Joy, joy!  My internet connection is [mostly] reliable and zippy.  Woohoo!

However...

This afternoon I tried to print.  I tried from all the computers living on my net.  The only one that can print is the 8100 -- BECAUSE it's directly connected to the printer.  More research and all I can conclude is that the TimeCapsule (and many of its predecessors) don't route AppleTalk packets.  I can find no reference to AppleTalk in any of their manuals.  *sigh*

So, after a quick scrounge, I may have located a USB printer that I can plug into the TimeCapsule to share with all my computers... EXCEPT that I don't think there are drivers for it for Mac OS 8.6, so, for now, I'll have to keep the LaserWriter connected to the 8100... till I can migrate the apps (and data) I still use off to a different computer.