On Sat, Jun 05, 2004 at 06:00:03PM +0200, karim wrote: > Hello, > I have tried to make work a laser writer 8/600 and a style writer 2 a > pmac 8200 (7200) and failed on a yellow dog at first, and then on the > debian. > Cups and foomatic are installed, but it's not ok. > I have googled a lot and what I tried didn't workd. > > I would like to know if anybody managed to make this serial printers > works on an old world mac, or if it's hopeless. > I am certainly missing something though.
Here's my advice: get the printer manual, check the cabling, and try Minicom. I use serial to a LaserWriter Select 360. Cabling gotcha? At first it looked hopeless because I didn't understand the cabling needed to connect the Mac serial port (9-pin mini-DIN) to the printer serial port (DB25). A modem cable connects at both ends, but the wiring is wrong because a modem is DCE (data communications equipment) but a printer is DTE (data terminal equipment). What does work for me is a modem cable together with a DB-25 crossover cable. (Later I acquired a proper single cable.) The best reference I found for cabling was at the NetBSD web page. Serial settings gotcha? Back when I tried `setserial', the results were painful (crashes, freezes, etc.). What worked best for setup was Minicom, in which I fiddled with serial settings to finally reach the exciting moment, my first view of my printer's PostScript prompt! Miscellaneous notes: Now I use lpr, though presumably CUPS ought to work. I use a miniature script to call stty at boot time. Minicom remains useful: in particular, control-T asks about printer status and control-D terminates a failing print job (which sometimes happens if I try to print the wrong kind of file). I have accumulated, but now seldom use, various PostScript files to get and set printer configuration (so I never need MacOS). Using the serial line at 57600 seems a little slower than using LocalTalk from MacOS. My only remaining trouble is that for some unknown reason I sometimes have to send control-D before anything will print. Summary: check cabling, get printer manual, try Minicom. Don't be afraid to just dump a file to the printer to see what happens. In the case of a PostScript printer, be prepared to spend some time learning a bit of the language. -- John
