Personal LaserWriter300 on Pentium - How???
Russell Mills
and low and haven't found help yet.
The problem:
I want to use my Apple Personal LaserWriter300 with my Pentium PC. I've
hooked them up via serial cable (null modem and otherwise) and have had
no success.
Other info:
The Personal LaserWriter has only one serial port - a mini-DIN 8 pin.
I called the Apple hotline and received _no_ help. Just that they
do not support doing it.
If you have _any_ good ideas, please respond!
Thanks,
Russ
Research Bureau
so arrogant that it feels that it can ignore 90% of the printer industry
standards. It also show what MORONS apple has on their SOS "help" line.
The answer you need has many parts.
Firstly is the physical connector, in this case a mini din 8. You have
said the printer has no other connections. This is the first problem,
especially as the mini-din 8 is very hard to solder and industry
non-standard. The hardware used on Macs for networking, meaning the
cables and plugs, are collectively referred to as LocalTalk. Keep this in
mind, as it is easily confused with the term "AppleTalk" which is the
signal protocol that is sent over the hardware specification (LocalTalk).
Secondly is the data link mechanism (or signal protocol) sent from the
computer to the printer. On this particular printer model, Apple probably
only supports AppleTalk. Appletalk uses two internal stacks called Printer
Access Protocol (PAP) or, in some cases, AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol
(ADSP). This is incompatible with all other industry standards and
explains why your RS 422/485 to 232 emulation went nowhere. The data you
were sending could not be understood by the printer which was expecting
AppleTalk.
Thirdly is the language used internally by the printer. Mac uses
Postscript while the PC world uses the industry standard by Hewlett
Packard called Printer Control Language (PCL) and Printer Job Language
(PJL).
Apple dealers who are STUPID and USELESS, generally don't even know what
PCL and PJL is, though most PC dealers know exactly what AppleTalk is. In
many cases they are not even aware of what a serial and paralell port is,
let alone bi-directional paralell ports, 10 base T and so on.
The fastest solution is a PC serial port device that converts the PC
output into Appletalk signals as well as providing you with a standard
Apple hardware interface. It is made by Apexx Technology. One end has a
standard DB-25 male plug (PC standard) and the other end female mini-din 8
socket (Apple Localtalk hardware choice). It comes bundled with software
that apparently does the translation and make the PC recognize the Mac
printer. Their phone number is 208.336.9400 or 1.800.767.4858.
This will *probably* allow you to output PC postscript to the Mac printer.
Problem again is that most PC programs do not use postscript.
You will most likely still need software to convert the PC standard
Printer Control Language (PCL) and Printer Job Language (PJL) output into
Postscript. This is a special driver bit of software that intercepts
WinDoze at the GDI level and translates the output into Postscript, which
is then grabbed at the serial port by the Apexx converter where it is sent
as Appletalk signals to the Mac printer.
The companies that make these solutions are constantly changing their
products, so they may now have a total solution available, including the
translation software and drivers. Check with them. You might also try GDT
who make a Mac to PC printing solution, as they may have now reversed the
process. They can be reached on 604.291.9121 or 800.663.6222.
Actually, I just found another reference to Sitka NetPrint 510.769.9669 or
800.445.8677 that also looks like they might have a solution for PC to Mac
printing.
I hope this helps. Give me a holler if it does not help. I have written
several prototype custom interfaces to address this exact issue.
I am forwarding a copy of this the Managing Director of Apple Computers
Australia. I answer this question so regularly in comp.sys.mac.printing
that it should be made a FAQ. On the other hand, Apple might get its act
together some time claerly articulate each of their printers *exact*
capabilities, ports, hardware, interfaces, drivers and third party
solutions that add value.
This old fashioned approach of helping customers find a solution. Bearing
in mind that the vast majority of computer users (and therefore potential
printer users/buyers) use PC's, this seems pretty fundamental. Helping
customers find solutions to legacy hardware equals increased sales and the
ultimate survival of Apple. This problem is worldwide for Apple.
It is so frustrating for me that Apple cannot or will not address a
fundamental compatibility problem with their printers. I know of many
organisations, such as Kinko's, that chose HP over Apple on their 4MV &
4M Plus black and white printers for this very reason, and watching the
printer buyers behaviour at circuit city or the Good Guys simply confirms
it.
Naturally, the Apple sales "executives" will come up with rationalizations
that prove there is no problem, or that if there is a problem it belongs
to somebody else, or other similar self-serving arguments. This keeps them
employed despite their ignorance.
Cheers, Geoff.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
In article <45v5pa$e...@info.evansville.net>, rlm...@evansville.net
Mark Hancheroff
a...@cyberzone.com.au (Research Bureau) wrote:
>You have entered the Apple COMMERCIAL SUICIDE ZONE. This is where Apple is
>so arrogant that it feels that it can ignore 90% of the printer industry
>standards. It also show what MORONS apple has on their SOS "help" line.
>
>The answer you need has many parts.
Clipped...
And the answer you gave is really useless. Ranting and raving that Apple
didn't give you all the bells and whistles on their lowest cost laser
printer doesn't help. If you want cross platform printing, buy the Select
model with both Mac and PC ports. And don't gripe beacause Apple doesn't
choose to use everyone else's standards. If you don't like it, vote your
dollars and buy something else. Or maybe you can get a LW Pro that will
emulate HP standard printing. We use one in my office.
Bitching about Apple doesn't help the guy with his question.
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>In article <45v5pa$e...@info.evansville.net>, rlm...@evansville.net
>(Russell Mills) wrote:
>
>> The problem:
>> I want to use my Apple Personal LaserWriter300 with my Pentium PC. I've
>> hooked them up via serial cable (null modem and otherwise) and have had
>> no success.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Russ
Your only choice is to sell the printer and buy the next model up. That
model is apple specific only. That's why it is so cheap. ( I have one
too). Get a remanufactured Select model or an inexpensice HP if the
printer is only for your pentium.
MCH
--
It may be bad manners to talk with your mouth full,
but it isn't too good either if you speak when your
head is empty.
Shane
>You have entered the Apple COMMERCIAL SUICIDE ZONE. This is where Apple is
>so arrogant that it feels that it can ignore 90% of the printer industry
>standards. It also show what MORONS apple has on their SOS "help" line.
>
>The answer you need has many parts.
>
>Firstly is the physical connector, in this case a mini din 8. You have
>said the printer has no other connections. This is the first problem,
>especially as the mini-din 8 is very hard to solder and industry
>non-standard. The hardware used on Macs for networking, meaning the
>cables and plugs, are collectively referred to as LocalTalk. Keep this in
>mind, as it is easily confused with the term "AppleTalk" which is the
>signal protocol that is sent over the hardware specification (LocalTalk).
It is obvious that you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. The Personal Laserwriter 300 is designed to be a NON-NETWORKABLE printer and does not have the ability to use local talk connectors. Instead it uses a serial cable for the Mac that that has a mini din 8 connection.
>
>Secondly is the data link mechanism (or signal protocol) sent from the
>computer to the printer. On this particular printer model, Apple probably
>only supports AppleTalk. Appletalk uses two internal stacks called Printer
>Access Protocol (PAP) or, in some cases, AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol
>(ADSP). This is incompatible with all other industry standards and
>explains why your RS 422/485 to 232 emulation went nowhere. The data you
>were sending could not be understood by the printer which was expecting
>AppleTalk.
This printer that you are ranting about was not designed to be used on a PC. It was designed to be a low cost laser printer. There are many other Apple printers that will allow you to connect to PCs and Macs.
>
>Thirdly is the language used internally by the printer. Mac uses
>Postscript while the PC world uses the industry standard by Hewlett
>Packard called Printer Control Language (PCL) and Printer Job Language
>(PJL).
There are several Apple printers that can emulate PCL and Postscript. BTW if you were as familiar with Apple printers as you think that you are you would know that the Personal LaserWriter 300 does NOT use Postscript. It uses Quickdraw.
>
>Apple dealers who are STUPID and USELESS, generally don't even know what
>PCL and PJL is, though most PC dealers know exactly what AppleTalk is. In
>many cases they are not even aware of what a serial and paralell port is,
>let alone bi-directional paralell ports, 10 base T and so on.
I have not found this to be true.
>
>The fastest solution is a PC serial port device that converts the PC
>output into Appletalk signals as well as providing you with a standard
>Apple hardware interface. It is made by Apexx Technology. One end has a
>standard DB-25 male plug (PC standard) and the other end female mini-din 8
>socket (Apple Localtalk hardware choice). It comes bundled with software
>that apparently does the translation and make the PC recognize the Mac
>printer. Their phone number is 208.336.9400 or 1.800.767.4858.
>
>This will *probably* allow you to output PC postscript to the Mac printer.
>Problem again is that most PC programs do not use postscript.
>
The other problem is that this printer will understand Postscript about as well as it understands PCL. As far as I know there is no way to be able to connect this printer to a Pentium.
This guys complaing about how bad Apple is doesn't do much to solve the problem. It would also help if he was familair with the products that he complains about. You can't say that Apple printers are all that bad since I remember several of the winning awards and praise frm many PC magazines and the LaserWriter Select 360 was named printer of the over its HP counterpart by a PC magazine.
Peter Aitkins
problems are merely a symptom - there are many others.
Ask yourself why Apple never addresses these issues. This post will be
read by many thousands of people, who will know that from the absence of
any official reply at all from Apple, that they really have become a
self-serving constipated bureaucracy un-interested in users.
I have now discovered, no thanks to Apple of course, and nothing in their
various printer manuals (of course) about the 300 and the 360 that "Shane"
thinks are the best thing since sliced bread.
The 300 has no Postscript at all, and probably no Appletalk either. It
relies on having the host Mac do the rasterizing of the image in Quickdraw
and sending the ready to print data to the printer. Admittedly, the
WinWriters do pretty much the same thing, but then again they use common
industry wide standards.
To make matters worse, Apple *probably* uses its own cutsie (and
proprietory) Binary Communications Protocol on the serial link (it does on
the Personal Laser Writer 310, so I assume the same for the 300).
Basically this allows certain characters to be used as control functions
which can be used asynchronously by the comms driver. I say probably
because, once again the lack of info. This is the 1-800 United States SOS
line I am referring to, just so their is doubt.
Apple Australia, believe it or not, has a help line. But they asked the
local newspapers NOT TO PUBLISH THE PHONE NUMBER !! Apparently they are
even more scared of real, living customers than Apple USA. At least the
USA listens, even if they do intend to do nothing about it.
Lack of information from Apple leaves much room for doubt, fear, worry
and error (and this is why people do not buy Apple printers, choosing
instead to play it safe and by a Hewlett Packard).
Therefore connecting the 300 to a PC will require, at the minimum, serial
cable mods *and* ensuring the clock speed(s) supported on the printer
match the PC's serial comms. This can be tricky to say the least.
Again, no documentation from Apple.
You could connect the 300 via a cheapo slave low end Mac that acts as a
printer server that can accept data from the PC; problem is that you would
need software to present the PC data as Quickdraw to the slave Mac. I have
not heard of a postscript to quickdraw converter, drivers normally do the
reverse.
Shane is basically correct in stating that Apple has worked hard to ensure
incompatibility of their printers with the other 90% of the computer
market, and that through clever design and marketing, they have snatched
defeat from the jaws of victory.
***** The Laser 360 ******
This initially promising piece of network equipment is a bad choice for
network administrators.
It possibly supports a fully compliant IEEE1284 bi-directional parallel
port, but again this is not made explicit (unlike in the PC world). It
does not come with any PC driver software as far as I know that converts
the WinDoze GDI data into PCL.
Most importantly, it does *not* support Printer Job Language (PJL) for
network control and management, nor SNMP. As usual the technical info is
missing.
******** Stupidity & Arrogance **********
Everyone should not the **conspicuous absence** of Apple engineers or
representatives addressing these issues on this newsgroup or that of Open
Transport which, according to Apple is no problem, or to the extent there
is a problem it is not Apple's problem.
It would be a simple mattter to answer this, but they don't. That is why
Apple is in trouble. The CHRP sounds promising but it will also fail
because:-
A. it will be subject to supply problems (Apple will, as usual, under
estimate demand)
B. the other CHRP will deviate ever so slightly to make it non mac
compatible or something
C. Copland 98 will be too late.
This will be carefully timed to ensure that Apple misses out on the window
of opportunity offered by the plug and play Web/Internet server market.
This is in the 1990's what Desk Top Publishing (DTP) did from Apple in the
eighties.
Apple will work hard to ensure it misses the boat on this. I am convinced
the management of Apple are deliberately trying to wreck the company.
****** My motivation for this flame ****
Seriously annoyed at the pan faced, deafening silence from Apple, lack of
published, easily accessable technical info and failure to address users
concerns in this and other internet forums.
And can someone stop Guy Kawasaki's digital diarrhea ? He has even
resorted to posting the weather reports of where he is physically located.
Banality gone mad. He divels out everything except answering the tough
questions that users want to hear. He rationalizes this in his latest post
by stating that by doing that he would rapidly become an ex-apple fellow.
This sounds a bit like editorial control. Perhap's Apple's "campus" leader
Herr Spindler is unaware of academic freedom; it is certainly unaware of
its customers. Naturally, you NEVER see Herr Spindler or his inner sanctum
on the net (though you do with many other major company execs).
Finally are the statistics "Revenues are up n% to $$$$, growth at % blah
blah". This is what the communists did in the 1950's to make things sound
great when in reality they were terrible. It all has a ring of unreality
to it, like feeding candy floss to drooling children who flatly refuse to
see any faults with Apple.
Why is it that eveyone thinks Wall street is so tough on Apple for no good
reason ? The answer is right in front of you, and many of the points in
this flame/article touch on the reasons.
Any way, lets have a discussion, not a flame war. Let us also stick to
issues and not sink to name calling. OK, now the floor is open......
Richard Kunert
> cable mods *and* ensuring the clock speed(s) supported on the printer
> match the PC's serial comms. This can be tricky to say the least.
>
The 300 uses a proprietary driver that compresses the data and it also
externally clocks the serial port at 909 Kbps for more speed. Making this
printer work with a PC would require extensive engineering. I don't have a
problem with that, since Apple never represented it as working with PCs.
> You could connect the 300 via a cheapo slave low end Mac that acts as a
> printer server that can accept data from the PC; problem is that you would
> need software to present the PC data as Quickdraw to the slave Mac. I have
> not heard of a postscript to quickdraw converter, drivers normally do the
> reverse.
Freedom of Press rasterizes Postscript but it's slow. I'm not sure it
would work with GrayShare, though. Also, since the speed of this printer
depends on your computer's processor speed, a "cheapo low end Mac" would
not work well.
> Shane is basically correct in stating that Apple has worked hard to ensure
> incompatibility of their printers with the other 90% of the computer
> market, and that through clever design and marketing, they have snatched
> defeat from the jaws of victory.
Lighten up. The 300 (and the LaserWriter LS it was derived from) were
designed the way they were because they can print a full legal page of
text and graphics with only 512 KB of RAM. They did it to save money, not
to make them incompatible. Are you going to say that PCL was developed to
make PC printers incompatible with Macs?
--
Richard Kunert (rku...@facstaff.wisc.edu)
University of Wisconsin Anesthesiology Dept.
Mike Cohen
LocalTalk, Serial, and Parallel interfaces. I'm VERY happy with mine, which
I got about a year ago as a replacement for my old IINT which finally died.
--
Mike Cohen - is...@netcom.com
Home page: http://www.isis-intl.com/
Sound is the same for all the world - Youssou N'dour, "Eyes Open"
Brian Cole
]
] You have entered the Apple COMMERCIAL SUICIDE ZONE. This is where Apple is
] so arrogant that it feels that it can ignore 90% of the printer industry
] standards. It also show what MORONS apple has on their SOS "help" line.
]
] The answer you need has many parts.
You provide many parts, but none are an answer. Furthermore, many many of
your claims are just plain incorrect.
Before I go further, let me address this "Apple commercial suicide" thing.
First, the lw300 is an older model that was phased out a long while ago,
so if any suicide zone was entered it was way back when this printer was
purchased. Second, the lw300 was designed to be the cheapest possible
mac-compatible laser printer, so all platform-interoperability features
were sacrificed in the name of price. If the purchaser of the printer
was worried about platform-interoperability, then s/he should have spent
a few hundred dollars more more the next model up (which supported PC-clones
as well as any other printer). Third, at the time no other company was
selling a low-cost laser printer that was Mac compatible--if you wanted
Mac compatibility you had to buy a higher-end model. So by releasing
this printer (and this model did indeed ignore 90% or so of the overall
laser printer market) Apple absolutely dominated the low end of 10% or
so of the market they weren't ignoring. If you have the chance to dominate,
say, 5% of a market as large as the laser printer market, then you do it
without hesitation and grin ear-to-ear if someone calls you stupid for
doing so. (I say "or so" because the laser-printers-per-computer ratio
is much higher for macs than for PC-clones, so 90% is likely too high.)
Fourth, the people at 800-SOS-APPL may be morons, but in my experience
they aren't any worse than any other company's 1-800 tech-droids.
] Firstly is the physical connector, in this case a mini din 8. You have
] said the printer has no other connections. This is the first problem,
] especially as the mini-din 8 is very hard to solder and industry
] non-standard.
Soldering them is indeed a pain, so why not put down your soldering iron and
buy a cheap mini-din-8 to DB-25 RS-232 (or DB9 RS-232C) adapter instead?
] The hardware used on Macs for networking, meaning the
] cables and plugs, are collectively referred to as LocalTalk. Keep this in
] mind, as it is easily confused with the term "AppleTalk" which is the
] signal protocol that is sent over the hardware specification (LocalTalk).
LocalTalk is nice, but irrelevant here because the lw300 is not a LocalTalk
printer. (Remember? They cut all possible corners to lower the cost.)
The lw300 uses a high-speed serial protocol. You are right that it's almost
impossible to get a PC-clone to talk to a lw300, but you might as well blame
this on wimpy PC-clone serial ports that have trouble doing even 57.6kbps.
] Thirdly is the language used internally by the printer. Mac uses
] Postscript while the PC world uses the industry standard by Hewlett
] Packard called Printer Control Language (PCL) and Printer Job Language
] (PJL).
This is a bit misleading. For one, plenty of PC-clone users (the smart
ones, one could argue) print using PostScript instead of HP-PCL. More
to the current point, the lw300 is not a PostScript printer (Remeber?
They cut all possible corners to lower the cost.) In mac lingo we say
that the lw300 is a "QuickDraw" printer, which is really a semi-misleading
way of saying that it just prints a bitmap it gets sent from the host.
] The fastest solution is a PC serial port device that converts the PC
] output into Appletalk signals as well as providing you with a standard
] Apple hardware interface.
This won't work because the lw300 does not understand AppleTalk.
] It is so frustrating for me that Apple cannot or will not address a
] fundamental compatibility problem with their printers. I know of many
] organisations, such as Kinko's, that chose HP over Apple on their 4MV &
] 4M Plus black and white printers for this very reason
The LaserJet 4MV is no more "compatible" than most of Apple's laser
printers. In fact, right next to the 4MV at Kinkos is an Apple Color
LaserWriter 16/600, which PC-clones can print to just fine. I think
Kinkos chose the 4MV mainly because it can handle tabloid-size paper.
brian
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ _______ _____ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian A. Cole |_ _ | | ___| visit Brian's Repository
U. Wisconsin | | | |__| |___ of Macintosh Information
t...@cs.wisc.edu |_| |__________| http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~tuc/mac/
Richard Kunert
Cole) wrote:
> a...@cyberzone.com.au (Research Bureau) writes:
> ]
> ] You have entered the Apple COMMERCIAL SUICIDE ZONE. This is where Apple is
> ] so arrogant that it feels that it can ignore 90% of the printer industry
> ] standards. It also show what MORONS apple has on their SOS "help" line.
> ]
> ] The answer you need has many parts.
>
> You provide many parts, but none are an answer. Furthermore, many many of
> your claims are just plain incorrect.
>
> Before I go further, let me address this "Apple commercial suicide" thing.
> First, the lw300 is an older model that was phased out a long while ago
Actually it is a current model. The LW *Select* 300 was phased out. The
two printers use similar technology, though, and the same driver. They're
all based on the LaserWriter LS design.
These printers use proprietary driver-level data compression to fit a full
page of text and graphics into 512 KB of RAM. The page is broken up into a
series of "bands"; what's actually sent to the printer is a compressed
bitmap of each band. The printers also externally clock the serial port to
909 Kbps. These are the big obstacles to using the printers with a PC. The
connector problems are trivial by comparison.
The LaserWriter LS was a clever design. Sending a compressed bitmap to the
printer over a high speed serial link was cheaper to implement than the
methods used by previous Quickdraw laser printers (uncompressed data over
a SCSI connection) and the performance can be pretty good, depending on
your computer's processor speed.
cbuc...@mugu.navy.mil
> # I'll start this thread again. Let me begin by saying that the
printer
> # problems are merely a symptom - there are many others.
> # . . .
>
> My two cents.
> 1. Had Apple not been keeping spec of their products top secret,
many of
> us would probably be using Mac clones instead of PC clones
today.
> 2. Too bad that some network administrators are trying to use
Apple
> products on non-Apple systems. Can't they see that it will
never work?
> See cent 1 for the reason. I have only heard about using
documented
> devices on Apple computers, not Apple devices on documented
computers.
Jeez I wished I had known that earlier. Our Macs and PC's are
coexisting very nicely on our network. Printers and all!!!
Craig
Tony Herr
Aitkins, pait...@cheops.anu.edu.au writes:
>I have now discovered, no thanks to Apple of course, and nothing in their
>various printer manuals (of course) about the 300 and the 360 that "Shane"
>thinks are the best thing since sliced bread.
>
>The 300 has no Postscript at all, and probably no Appletalk either. It
>relies on having the host Mac do the rasterizing of the image in Quickdraw
>and sending the ready to print data to the printer. Admittedly, the
>WinWriters do pretty much the same thing, but then again they use common
>industry wide standards.
You're right. The Personal LaserWriter 300 (PLW300) does not have
postscript and Apple does not explicitly say that it doesn't have
postscript in it's data sheets. Of course they don't explicitly say that
it's not a color printer either, but you were able to figure that out,
right? It's not a big secret that the PLW300 is a low end Apple only
TrueType printer, it's printed on the data sheet (not a very technical
document).
<SNIP>
>Therefore connecting the 300 to a PC will require, at the minimum, serial
>cable mods *and* ensuring the clock speed(s) supported on the printer
>match the PC's serial comms. This can be tricky to say the least.
Apple never sold the PLW300 for use with non-Mac's. If you want to try
and do it that's your problem. If you got the printer for free it might
be worth the effort. Or did you buy the printer without first checking
it's compatibility?
>******** Stupidity & Arrogance **********
>
>Everyone should not the **conspicuous absence** of Apple engineers or
>representatives addressing these issues on this newsgroup or that of Open
>Transport which, according to Apple is no problem, or to the extent there
>is a problem it is not Apple's problem.
Actually Gary Hornbuckle of Apple has been posting on comp.sys.mac.comm
about OT. OT is a problem but there are workarounds (MacTCP) for those
who don't want to struggle with making it work.
>It would be a simple mattter to answer this, but they don't. That is why
>Apple is in trouble. The CHRP sounds promising but it will also fail
>because:-
>
>A. it will be subject to supply problems (Apple will, as usual, under
>estimate demand)
CHRP will allow other companies to produce Mac's. I think that the only
way Apple could screw up here is by not being able to produce enough
ROM's for the other makers. I've never heard about ROM's being the reason
for a production shortage though. There might be problems with getting
enough PowerPC processors also, but that's not going to be Apple's fault.
>B. the other CHRP will deviate ever so slightly to make it non mac
>compatible or something
The current clones don't seem to have any compatibility problems. I don't
think that this will be an issue.
>C. Copland 98 will be too late.
Copland is late as far as I'm concerned, but so was Windows 95.
>This will be carefully timed to ensure that Apple misses out on the window
>of opportunity offered by the plug and play Web/Internet server market.
>This is in the 1990's what Desk Top Publishing (DTP) did from Apple in the
>eighties.
Copland is not essential to Web servers. It should really improve things,
but Webstar is already a great product and when OT becomes stable Webstar
will be even better.
>Apple will work hard to ensure it misses the boat on this. I am convinced
>the management of Apple are deliberately trying to wreck the company.
Now we get to root of all this. Consipiracy theory, that's original.
<never mind the rest>
Tony
----------------------------------------------------
Tony Herr - Computer Resource Specialist - DoD #1351
Bay Tree Bookstore - University of California
I speak at and not for the University of California
Research Bureau
Hi - this is worth reposting. There is much truth IMHO.
I hope the people at the Australian EDNA project, who are thinking (ROTFL) of
buying Macintosh read this and then ask themselves if Apple really wants
the business - a help line they do not want published - outrageous !!!!!
Research Bureau
Great. But does it come with WinDoze drivers ? Does it support PCL ? PJL ?
A WinDoze ECP/ECM vxd library ?
Failure to address this = lost sales. That is why people choose Hewlett
Packard, because their printers are connectivity rich, well documented,
good quality and their engineers are not afraid of talink to users to make
the product better.
Why is Apple so secretive ? Does everyone notice that they have not tried
to rebutt any of the problems ?
Not being 100% connectivity is, as they say, commercial suicide, *and I
can already smell the toast burning*.
The PPC is late, huge backlogs. A Swiss company ports the Mac O/S to the
CHRP and Apple spits in their eye, probably because they are small and
smart, something Apple cannot relate to any longer.
C'mon Apple - why the silence ?
Research Bureau
********************************** reply no. 1
In article <rkunert-0611...@kelud.anesthesia.wisc.edu>,
rku...@facstaff.wisc.edu (Richard Kunert) wrote:
> > Therefore connecting the 300 to a PC will require, at the minimum, serial
> > cable mods *and* ensuring the clock speed(s) supported on the printer
> > match the PC's serial comms. This can be tricky to say the least.
> >
>
> The 300 uses a proprietary driver that compresses the data and it also
> externally clocks the serial port at 909 Kbps for more speed. Making this
> printer work with a PC would require extensive engineering. I don't have a
> problem with that, since Apple never represented it as working with PCs.
>
> > You could connect the 300 via a cheapo slave low end Mac that acts as a
> > printer server that can accept data from the PC; problem is that you would
> > need software to present the PC data as Quickdraw to the slave Mac. I have
> > not heard of a postscript to quickdraw converter, drivers normally do the
> > reverse.
>
> Freedom of Press rasterizes Postscript but it's slow. I'm not sure it
> would work with GrayShare, though. Also, since the speed of this printer
> depends on your computer's processor speed, a "cheapo low end Mac" would
> not work well.
>
> > Shane is basically correct in stating that Apple has worked hard to ensure
> > incompatibility of their printers with the other 90% of the computer
> > market, and that through clever design and marketing, they have snatched
> > defeat from the jaws of victory.
>
> Lighten up. The 300 (and the LaserWriter LS it was derived from) were
> designed the way they were because they can print a full legal page of
> text and graphics with only 512 KB of RAM. They did it to save money, not
> to make them incompatible. Are you going to say that PCL was developed to
> make PC printers incompatible with Macs?
>
Diane Wilson
There are some parts of this that get a little irritating. So Apple sells
laser printers that aren't postscript? Big deal; they've been doing that for
nearly a decade. They're low-end printers, they've always been low-end
printers, and they can't be anything else. Here's a secret: Apple isn't
the only company that does that, either. HP was really slow to get on the
postscript wagon. They still sell non-postscript printers. So do a lot of
other people.
If you buy a bargain printer and expect it to do everything a more expensive
printer would do, that's your problem, not Apple's. Read the specs before
you buy. Ask around. Use your brain. Here's a hint: if a spec-sheet
does NOT say "it supports x" then the device doesn't support x. If it does
support x, they'll want you to know about it. Here's another hint: find
out what a printer does *before* you buy it, rather than bitching afterwards
that it doesn't do whatever.
But here are a couple of things that really tick me off:
Making a purchase without investigating first, then blaming the vendor or
the manufacturer. There's no such thing as a perfect vendor or manufacturer.
There is such a thing as an intelligent consumer.
Reposting a flame, especially one that ends with, "lets have a discussion,
not a flame war."
--
Diane Wilson
BTW, most flames I've seen on the net accomplished only one thing:
discrediting the flamer. Yes, there are exceptions. But don't assume that
just because YOU are the one who is angry that you will be one of those
exceptions. The odds are against you.
Diane Wilson
In article <mkl.81...@whoopi.rob.cs.tu-bs.de>, m...@rob.cs.tu-bs.de (Mario Klebsch DG1AM) writes:
|> Why do you need a driver for it. WIndows comes with a PostScript
|> driver and I am sure, it will work fine with this printer. In fact it
|> worked fine with any postscript printer I tried.
Careful with this one. Yes, Win95 has a postscript driver. It does not
have all the printer description files, etc., to support even the printers
listed in the printer setup procedure.
I have a LW Select 360, which I'm driving as a IINTX because Apple doesn't
yet have the Win95 support ready (or didn't last time I checked, a few weeks
ago). What I lose is 600dpi printing (from Windoze only), which is one of
the two features I bought the printer for. (The other feature is the dual
connectivity, which Apple does support if you buy the right printer.)
--
Diane Wilson
Dave Sawyer
Just FYI, the Win95 driver for the 360 (and the other newer Apple laser
printers) is available. You can get at any of Apple's support archives.
Here's one URL:
ftp://ftptoo.support.apple.com/pub/apple_sw_updates/US/DOS &
Windows/Printing Software For Windows/Win95_LW_Printer_SW.exe
----------------------------------------------
Dave Sawyer
Systems Consultant, Entex Information Services, Inc.
----------------------------------------------
"Vex not thy employer by covering thy words with their mantle;
neither let thy employer assail thee through coveting thy words for
their mouthes. This is the path to continued gainful and profitable days"
- Jackson 5, Verse 32a, Rev. 1.06
----------------------------------------------
Uncle Dave
a...@cyberzone.com.au (Research Bureau) wrote:
[Much fire, flame and ash removed]
> > Any way, lets have a discussion, not a flame war. Let us also stick to
> > issues and not sink to name calling. OK, now the floor is open......
Why should I bother, your mind is fully made up. Go and prosper.
Unk
Mario Klebsch DG1AM
>Failure to address this = lost sales. That is why people choose Hewlett
>Packard, because their printers are connectivity rich, well documented,
>good quality and their engineers are not afraid of talink to users to make
>the product better.
Well documented? (You can hear me laughing) I really was disappointed
by the bad quality of HP's documentation about the LJ4MV. They don't
tell anything about the feature or the absence of features of the
PostScript interpreter of this printer. In fact they seem to completly
ignore PostScript in theit documentation. Same for JL5PM. They even
did not mention the service on port 9099.
Good quality? Perhaps the hardware. Connectivity rich? You can't buy
ethernet with AUI connector. Their implementation of lpd is a
joke. The printer does not know about its interfaces. They claim to
have PostScript 2000.14. I got the description of 2000.14 from
ftp.adobe.com. The printer does not have much of the features
described in the document. So many entries in the device dictionaries
are missing. The printer only knows about three devices when there are
much more. I tried to change the screen with setscreen, but the
printer ignores setscreen.
73, Mario
--
Mario Klebsch, DG1AM, M.Kl...@tu-bs.de +49 531 / 391 - 7457
Institut fuer Robotik und Prozessinformatik der TU Braunschweig
Hamburger Strasse 267, 38114 Braunschweig, Germany
Dave Sawyer
> A Swiss company ports the Mac O/S to the
> CHRP and Apple spits in their eye, probably because they are small and
> smart, something Apple cannot relate to any longer.
Quix did NOT port the MacOS to CHRP - CHRP machines don't even exist yet
except perhaps as handbuilt prototypes. Quix did a port to PReP (a
platform of which maybe a few hundred machines have been sold). Why should
Apple bother to support a port to a platform which has already been
abandoned?
Jonathan A. Duke
> The PPC is late, huge backlogs. A Swiss company ports the Mac O/S to the
> CHRP and Apple spits in their eye, probably because they are small and
> smart, something Apple cannot relate to any longer.
If you can't get your facts right, your postings lose credibility. Quix
ported the OS to PREP boxes.
And I don't see how this relates to your useless tirade.
Besides, if Apple and Linotype hadn't taken the plunge with Postscript,
we'd still be printing everything in Courier 10 on a PCL 2 printer,
available only from HP. Competition is a good thing, even if you don't
like the competitors.
Jon Duke
--
Jonathan Duke
I don't pretend to reperesent BC in *any* form
paul
agree about the lack of help or interest from the employees. Many times I
have had a problem or a question about my Mac that I have posted in the
various groups and always I get a reply from one of the great people from
Apple. They may not be officially helpful, but the individual employees
are terrific from what I have seen. Please don't tromp on a bunch of hard
working helpful people because the people in the ivory towers are jerks.
As long as these people are out there helping, even unofficially, I will
have respect for them.
Respectfully,
Paul C.
--
I've a cunning plan..........
S.O. Baldrick
Research Bureau
The real issue is Apple having become bureaucratic and unresponsive.
Putting the printer matter aside for a moment (after all, the poster did
state is was a SYMPTOM of something much bigger, let me pose some
questions.
And before everyone runs the wagons around the Apple camp-fire, can we try
to use a bit of objectivity as to how Apple actually is right now rather
than what it was and the best intentions that it may have once had.
1. Why are there NEVER any posts from Apple engineers, especially in
comp.sys.mac.printers regarding low-level issues & design aspects.
2. That their network & high end server business group never answer email or
return calls.
3. That pre-emptive multi-tasking will not be around until 1998
4. That the executives are more interested in feathering their own nests and
hoping for a take-over to exercise all those wonderful little stock options
5. How did a great company led by a couple of visionaries deform and mutate into
a bureaucratically constipated screw-up ?
6. That for all of the above they are losing their most talented staff.
So. WHERE IS APPLE's REPLY TO ALL OF THIS ?
THEY DO NOT CARE A DAMN.
Yet all of the users have this happy fantasy of being "part" of the Apple
experience, when the truth is you are nothing more than a statistic on
some bureaucrat's spreadsheet.
Mario Klebsch
>3. That pre-emptive multi-tasking will not be around until 1998
Apple has this for years and it is called A/UX. But most Apple dealers
even don't know A/UX or anything about it. OTOH, Apple is to blame for
stopping to support this product. :-(
David J. Liu
# You know, you may be right about Apple and their problems, but I don't
# agree about the lack of help or interest from the employees. Many times I
# have had a problem or a question about my Mac that I have posted in the
# various groups and always I get a reply from one of the great people from
# Apple. . . .
To get a bad name, they only have to be dishonest, or just have a bad
atitude, on one important question. There seem to be more than one.
There are many official, defensive answers help-line staffs have been
trained to recite, though these people provide real help most of the time.
Ken Alper
G.Va...@ttu.edu (Greg Vaughn) wrote:
> I really don't see the point of the original message. Apple is cutting
> corners on the printers in order to sell them cheaper to Mac users. They
> are not attempting to sell them as a cross-platform solution. Why whine
> about it?
Because they ARE selling them as a cross-platform solution. Call their fax
server and read the docs on printers like the 360 or 16/600. They have
parallel ports on them and come with Windoze driver disks, for Christ's
sake...
--Ken
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Alper: MacGeek. Big-time fan: GH, Simpsons, AbFab, X-Files, FM 106.3,
B-5, old MST3K, KITH, SGC2C, DM, PSB, acronyms, The Chills, Macintosh Way,
& Kevin Bacon game. Sworn enemy of: Gates, evil mantises, & stupid people.
"Interstellar copyright doesn't mean shit when you're dealing with silicon."
__Tyrena Wingreen-Feif, _Hyperion_
Chad Leigh
rku...@facstaff.wisc.edu (Richard Kunert) wrote:
> The LaserWriter LS was a clever design. Sending a compressed bitmap to the
> printer over a high speed serial link was cheaper to implement than the
> methods used by previous Quickdraw laser printers (uncompressed data over
> a SCSI connection) and the performance can be pretty good, depending on
> your computer's processor speed.
>
> --
> Richard Kunert (rku...@facstaff.wisc.edu)
> University of Wisconsin Anesthesiology Dept.
Except that they didn't send over a SCSI line. They sent over a
"localtalk" line using localtalk connectors or phonenet at about 250kbps.
(Or a serial line)
An advantage is the easy networking of the printer so that any mac in the
office can use it with a few dollars worth of wire and localtalk/phonenet
boxes
Best regards
Chad
-------------------- Live Free or Die ! ---------------------------
Chad Leigh | When Guns are Outlawed, Criminals Win!
Pengar Enterprises, Inc. -- Home of The Electronic GunShop (sm)
ask me about it ch...@pengar.com. (or gun...@pengar.com)
http://www.xmission.com/~chad/egs/egs.html (or /egs_text.html)
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Kunert
Leigh) wrote:
> In article <rkunert-0611...@kelud.anesthesia.wisc.edu>,
> rku...@facstaff.wisc.edu (Richard Kunert) wrote:
>
> > The LaserWriter LS was a clever design. Sending a compressed bitmap to the
> > printer over a high speed serial link was cheaper to implement than the
> > methods used by previous Quickdraw laser printers (uncompressed data over
> > a SCSI connection) and the performance can be pretty good, depending on
> > your computer's processor speed.
> Except that they didn't send over a SCSI line. They sent over a
> "localtalk" line using localtalk connectors or phonenet at about 250kbps.
> (Or a serial line)
> An advantage is the easy networking of the printer so that any mac in the
> office can use it with a few dollars worth of wire and localtalk/phonenet
> boxes
Note that we're talking about *QuickDraw* printers here. I believe the
first Quickdraw laser printer was the LaserWriter SC, which used a SCSI
connection. The second was the GCC PLP, which also used a SCSI connection.
All the LocalTalk capable laser printers (at least from Apple) have been
PostScript printers, not QuickDraw.
Brad Anderson
>
>I doubt you will lose 600 dpi when the postscript driver things the
>printer has 300 dpi.
Wrong, it's a full 600dpi. We use one more than daily at the office.
> In PostScript you describe what you want to print
>and not what the printer is capable of printing. The printer will try
>its best to render the page. I know almost no need to know the
>printers resolution in a PS program other than downloading the page as
>a bitmap. But PostScript never was made for this purpose.
>
>I am sure, the printer will print in 600 dpi even when the computer
>"knows" the printer has 300 dpi.
That really depends on the program. Some of them *are* smart enough to
take the configurations directly from the computers known printer list and
output them in exactly the format that is specified by the printer
driver. Considering that one of the things the driver does is tell the
computer (and the program) what the resolution of the printer is, certain
programs can accomdate for many different configurations and convert them
transparently. Needless to say: some will work, some won't.
Povl H. Pedersen
:a...@cyberzone.com.au (Research Bureau) writes:
:>Failure to address this = lost sales. That is why people choose Hewlett
:>Packard, because their printers are connectivity rich, well documented,
:>good quality and their engineers are not afraid of talink to users to make
:>the product better.
My HP DeskWriter fullfills many of these but not the docs thing.
Connectivity rich is also much to say. The should only make one
DeskWriter/DeskJet with both interfaces. Quality is OK though. But I don't
think they have a tradition for using a real PostScript, but usually they
use some cheap imperfect clone.
:Well documented? (You can hear me laughing) I really was disappointed
:by the bad quality of HP's documentation about the LJ4MV. They don't
:tell anything about the feature or the absence of features of the
:PostScript interpreter of this printer. In fact they seem to completly
:ignore PostScript in theit documentation. Same for JL5PM. They even
:did not mention the service on port 9099.
I have problems with my HP JetDirect EX interface. Even though the docs
says it is useable with unix, it means 3 specific unices only. Otherwise
you need a $99 ROM upgrade. Does not work with Win95, only 3.11. Bad
experience all the way.
:Good quality? Perhaps the hardware. Connectivity rich? You can't buy
:ethernet with AUI connector. Their implementation of lpd is a
:joke. The printer does not know about its interfaces. They claim to
:have PostScript 2000.14. I got the description of 2000.14 from
:ftp.adobe.com. The printer does not have much of the features
:described in the document.
Thats my main problem with them. No real PostScript. After a bad Lexmark
experience, I want the real thing.
Our new Apple 16/600PS is something different. It is fast. Comes with
Parallel, AppleTalk and Ethernet (which simultaneous handles TCP/IP (lpd),
IPX and EtherTalk). Can act as its own print server if it can get access
to a Novell fileserver.
My only problem with it is, that our Linux box will only print 2 pages on
it :-( But our NT Server also prints to it using TCP/IP, and it works OK.
--
Povl H. Pedersen - po...@edunet.dk
Macintosh / Unix / Win (aaargghh) programmer - System Administrator
BeBox Developer WannaBe -
To Be or to BeBox
Peter Kerr
> I doubt you will lose 600 dpi when the postscript driver things the
> and not what the printer is capable of printing. The printer will try
> its best to render the page. I know almost no need to know the
> printers resolution in a PS program other than downloading the page as
> a bitmap. But PostScript never was made for this purpose.
If a printer has dual resolution, switchable enhancement, and other level2
features, Apple's .ppd will tell the print driver all about it. The print
driver should be clever enough to let you take advantage of this
flexibility. The options appear on your Pagesetup and Print dialogs. If
Windoze' driver is so stupid it can't take advantage of this info, then
you lose :-(
--
Peter Kerr bodger
School of Music chandler
University of Auckland neo-Luddite
frid...@dragon.pfc.mit.edu
->
->The real issue is Apple having become bureaucratic and unresponsive.
->Putting the printer matter aside for a moment (after all, the poster did
->state is was a SYMPTOM of something much bigger, let me pose some
->questions.
->
->And before everyone runs the wagons around the Apple camp-fire, can we try
->to use a bit of objectivity as to how Apple actually is right now rather
->than what it was and the best intentions that it may have once had.
->
->
->So. WHERE IS APPLE's REPLY TO ALL OF THIS ?
->
->THEY DO NOT CARE A DAMN.
Why should they respond to one stupid, moronic idiot, who starts a
flame war and keep that flame war going even nobody really agrees with him?
Just to contribute to it? It looks like you are already made up you mind so
anything anybody say will not make any difference to you. What would you like
them to do, apologise to you, give you a new printer, fire everybody, maybe hire
you instead...? Get lost.
Research Bureau
> > Peter Aitkins (pait...@cheops.anu.edu.au) wrote:
> > # I'll start this thread again. Let me begin by saying that the
> printer
> > # problems are merely a symptom - there are many others.
> > # . . .
> >
> > My two cents.
> > 1. Had Apple not been keeping spec of their products top secret,
> many of
> > us would probably be using Mac clones instead of PC clones
> today.
> > 2. Too bad that some network administrators are trying to use
> Apple
> > products on non-Apple systems. Can't they see that it will
> never work?
> > See cent 1 for the reason. I have only heard about using
> documented
> > devices on Apple computers, not Apple devices on documented
> computers.
Oh yes. Now tell me, is it via a serial connection, paralell, ethernet ?
Do you have a printer server ? Queues ? Novell Netware ?
Fact is that Mac printers do not work very well at all in a network, and
that is why HP leads in the field. Is everybody noticing the conspicuous
absence of Apple reps in this discussion ? Because they don't give a shit
about users.
Simon Kok
a...@cyberzone.com.au (Research Bureau) wrote:
> Fact is that Mac printers do not work very well at all in a network, and
> that is why HP leads in the field. Is everybody noticing the conspicuous
> absence of Apple reps in this discussion ? Because they don't give a shit
> about users.
Why don't you make use of that funky energy of yours to do something
*positive* like putting together a FAQ or web page that has information on
cross-platform printing in network environments for all types of
computers.
Your name is "Research" after all. =)
Cheers!
Simon Kok
Quality Assurance Manager
GDT Softworks Inc.
david s. broudy
> Oh yes. Now tell me, is it via a serial connection, paralell, ethernet ?
> Do you have a printer server ? Queues ? Novell Netware ?
>
> Fact is that Mac printers do not work very well at all in a network, and
> that is why HP leads in the field. Is everybody noticing the conspicuous
> absence of Apple reps in this discussion ? Because they don't give a shit
> about users.
Oh, this is funny. Our new Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600 came with Mac
and Windows driver disks, and a good chunk of the manual was devoted to
setting up the printer for use over TCP/IP and the various unix commands
to send stuff to it. It has serial, enhanced parallel, localtalk and
ethernet ports, all simultaneously active (tho we just use the ethernet).
Many people print to this thing with Macs, Windows systems going through
Novell queues, and Unix systems. In fact, these days there's really no
such thing as a "Mac" printer... a postscript printer sitting on a network
is pretty much platform-independent. Exception: our HP LaserJet IIIsi
monstrosity barely supports Postscript and has to be manually switched
from PCL to PS before I can send stuff via the Netware print queue (from a
Mac, fancy that). And half the time, it fucks up anyway, goes berserk and
starts spewing reams of Postscript code or pages with one "{" on em all
over the office.
What was your point again?
* http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~broudy/ *
* freelance web geek n tech writer *
Michael Hoeffner
> Fact is that Mac printers do not work very well at all in a network, and
> that is why HP leads in the field. Is everybody noticing the conspicuous
> absence of Apple reps in this discussion ? Because they don't give a shit
> about users.
We use Apple 16/600's in all of our SUN clusters here at Duke. We used to
use another kind of printer in the clusters, but that required a PC to be
hooked up to it for some reason. We also have a 16/600 in our "helpdesk"
office and we print to that from our SUNs, Macs, and PCs.
Thomas Tornblom
>
> The 300 has no Postscript at all, and probably no Appletalk either. It
> relies on having the host Mac do the rasterizing of the image in Quickdraw
> and sending the ready to print data to the printer. Admittedly, the
> WinWriters do pretty much the same thing, but then again they use common
> industry wide standards.
"industry wide standards", you talk necrosoft speak? Frankly, I regard
both technologies as garbage.
>
> To make matters worse, Apple *probably* uses its own cutsie (and
> proprietory) Binary Communications Protocol on the serial link (it does on
> the Personal Laser Writer 310, so I assume the same for the 300).
> Basically this allows certain characters to be used as control functions
> which can be used asynchronously by the comms driver. I say probably
> because, once again the lack of info. This is the 1-800 United States SOS
> line I am referring to, just so their is doubt.
>
I have a 310 that I drive from an old Sun386i. The biggest mis-feature
with it is that it wakes up in 57.6 kbps on its serial port, and this
is about the only reasonably standard speed a Sun can't generate. I
have it hooked to the parallel port on the 386i and I would rather
hook it to a bi-directional serial port.
The BCP is actually an Adobe thingie and is just a way to speak 8 bit
characters over a serial/parallel wire where you essentially need more
than 256 charcters. I don't think it is particularly proprietary as I
got info on from some apple site. If you want I can even send you the
source to a simple filter that converts data to BCP.
I believe most PostScript interpreters speak BCP, at least all that
comes from Adobe. And note that this is nothing you have to use. It is
completely optional. It can drastically reduce the amount of data sent
to the printer.
Thomas
--
Real life: Thomas Törnblom Email: Thomas....@Nexus.SE
Snail mail: Combitech Nexus AB Phone: +46 18 171814
Box 857 Fax: +46 18 696516
S - 751 08 Uppsala, Sweden
Unix is simple, but it takes a genius to understand its simplicity. -DMR
Mario Klebsch DG1AM
>The BCP is actually an Adobe thingie and is just a way to speak 8 bit
>characters over a serial/parallel wire where you essentially need more
>than 256 charcters. I don't think it is particularly proprietary as I
>got info on from some apple site. If you want I can even send you the
>source to a simple filter that converts data to BCP.
BCP (Binary Communication Protocol) cannot transfer more then 256
character, but it can transfer the entire 256 characeters. The
standard communication protocol has some characters, that cannot be
part of the postscript code (Ctrl-D, Ctrl-S CTRL-Q,...). BCP as well
as TBCP is capable to transfering all 256 possible 8 bit characeters
to the printer.
Converting data to BCP is like converting data to TCP/IP. BCP is a
protocol not a file (or data) format. A BCP file is as much nonsense
as a file containing standard protocol characers (like the files
Windows does generate).
>I believe most PostScript interpreters speak BCP, at least all that
>comes from Adobe. And note that this is nothing you have to use. It is
>completely optional. It can drastically reduce the amount of data sent
>to the printer.
BCP is not part of the interpreter. It is a communication protocol and
is implemented in the serial device driver.
CyberZone Inc.
Oh yeah, sure. Like 30 minutes to print from a Mac DOS card. Like the fact
that Kinko's bought HP 4MVs rather than the Apple for monochrome work,
which is the bulk of its business. That an entire newsgroup exists just to
deal with Apple printer related problems. That Apple engineers never
answer the posts. That Open Transport is a disaster zone.
No page accounting, no password security, no status updates; all of which
are standard on Lexmark, HP, Sharp etc. No bi-directional paralell port.
No driver developer's kit like HP Explorer.
No problems at all. Apple also had an immaculate conception. All those
morons who buy HP rather than Apple printers.
Imagine that !
----------------------------------------------------------------
(snip)
> > Hi - this is worth reposting. There is much truth IMHO.
> Sorry - it's not worth reposting... the gist is that he wanted to connect
> a LW300 to a PC.....as they say in America, get a life! And he wanted a
> highly technical response on how to do this from 1-800-SOS-APPL! It's just
> too weird - if anything, Apple's printers are a shining example of what
> Apple should be doing with it's products ( witness the rave reviews of the
> Apple Colour Laser printer - Kinkos' liked it enough to install one in
> every one of it's bureaus across the whole US)
>
> We have a LW360 that can (does) take jobs simultaneously from
> Mac(localtalk),Windows(parallel) and UNIX(serial).
>
> Andrew
Chris Stockwell, D.C.
"ghostscript?" Is it a "postscript" type printer language, I can utilize
on my Apple personal laserwriter LS? (By the way I bought it (the printer)
for about $275 at an auction. If Ghostscript isn't that, is there such a
program out there that will make my Personal Laserwriter LS more
functional?
Thanks, Chris Stockwell.
>In article <eric.818808848@zen>, er...@maths.uts.edu.au (Eric Lindsay) wrote:
> Personally, I wouldn't buy a GDI printer, because I do want to run things
> other than MS Windows. Indeed, I just got myself a Hewlett Packard 5MP,
which
> does not reply upon having a fast computer attached, and does include
> Postscript, and takes standard SIMMs, and has multiple ports for
attaching your computer(s). If asked, I'll tell people why I don't like
GDI printers.
> er...@zen.maths.uts.edu.au Eric Lindsay, School of Mathematical Sciences
> Don't take life too seriously. University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
> It is only temporary. +61 2 330 2254 office +61 2 330 2248 fax
> Microsoft Windows. Don't push it. Shove it!