Network printer

Saturday I had a Fort Wayne computer repair service call on a network printer issue. Previously, I was there installing a new windows computer. The printer in question was a model I had set up in the past many times: an HP Laserjet 4 plus. This was a very popular model in the 1990s due to it’s durability and reliability. It has been a long time since i had programmed one and it took a while to recall how to do it. The problem was the printer was set to get it’s IP address from the network router in the BootP mode.  This poses a problem because when it’s lease is up on its IP address,  it gets a new and possibly different one.  All the computers which knew the previous address can’t print to it any longer.  The printer needs to have a permanent or manual IP address.  I disabled the BootP setting by changing it from yes to no and this allowed me to set a manual or permanent address so the computers on the network can always find it.  The nice thing about these network printers is it doesn’t have host computer it is physically attached to and shared  printer.  It is connected via an ethernet cable to the network router/switch.