Thank you for that Cliff, you explain it well.

My problem was that until I visited The Apple Shop a few days ago, I did not know that the AirPort in my newish iMac was receive only and so to transmit to a printer I needed some sort of base station! 
I should have reworded the sentence below to read 'it has to receive a wireless signal.'

Doug
 
On 14 Apr 2011, at 18:00, Cliff Bender wrote:

> (11/04/13 3:21), Doug Browne wrote:
>> To make a wireless printer work, it has to receive an Internet signal.
> 
> and Brian Ferguson wrote:
> > EPSON Epson Stylus Photo TX710W @ Brian's iMac
> 
> I just wasted Monday trying to get my vintage 2001 HP LaserJet working over Ethernet and AppleTalk to 2 computers recently upgraded from 10.5 to OSX 10.6. In the end the solution was as expected early in the day, but took awhile to figure out. Perhaps this will help. (BTW, I'm no networking or OSX expert.)
> 
> Brian's note shows Snow Leopard being used.
> 
> - AppleTalk was abandoned in 10.6. Printer connections were pushed to USB and IP connections.
> 
> - Printers shared thru USB (i.e., another computer) can only be used when the computer to which the printer is connected is awake.
> 
> - Printers connected thru an IP connection (like an Airport Base station) can be accessed by any computer on the network, but the computer needs to know the IP address of the printer, which (I read elsewhere) must be static. A signal from or a connection to the Internet is not needed.
> 
> Here's my configuration and what was needed to get the printer going from every computer on the network.
> 
> A wire runs from the Base Station to a separate building and connects to a Linksys hub. The printer and a computer are connected to different ports on the hub by Ethernet. The BS assigned an address of 10.0.1.5 to the computer, and 10.0.1.6 to the printer. Printing a configuration page for the printer got me the IP address.
> 
> ++ In the Printer preferences, click + to add a printer, and click IP to select the type of printer connection. (All printers OSX can find automatically, including those shared through other computers, are in the Default tab.)
> 
> ++ In the Protocol popup, select IPP (Internet Printing Protocol).
> In the Address field, enter the IP address (10.0.1.6 in my case) and tab out.
> ++ OSX should go looking for the printer at that address. Change the Name and Location as desired. Select a different driver if desired, but the appropriate driver *should* be automatically selected. Sharing this printer through a computer is not necessary (although possible).
> 
> Not sure how to get the address assigned by BS to the Epson printer, but there should be some config file that could be printed or accessed from the printer setup menu. Use that address to configure the printer connection.
> 
> The only devices needed to print are then the computer, printer, and Base Station.
> 
> ++ To connect to the Epson via WiFi, you probably have to disconnect the USB cable and there may be a printer-side setting to tell it to use WiFi (but I'm guessing it automatically detects this). I don't have a WiFi printer, so can't check anything. The printer may be automatically detected (added to the Default printers) when the USB cable is disconnected and WiFi enabled -- in which case the IP configuration above is unnecessary bc the printer can be selected from the Default list.
> 
> If either of the above work, delete the previous "printer" for the Epson from the printer list by selecting it and clicking (-) to avoid confusion later.
> 
> Apple's help files and KnowledgeBase were decidedly unhelpful and non-knowing.
> 
> HTH
> 
> Cliff Bender