Serial port (RS-232): Serial ports were less commonly used than parallel ports for printing, but if I couldn’t find a parallel port print server, perhaps I could get a serial print server that would meet the same needs, if at a slower speed than the parallel port.It was almost unthinkable that anyone would ever use this port to print from a Mac, but what if I could find a parallel print server that would plug into the printer and which I could connect to via Ethernet? Parallel ports used to be commonplace for connecting printers to PCs. First, since it hails from the same era as the printer’s Ethernet port, it likely won’t work with Snow Leopard’s modern networking and printing technologies, and second, with a throughput of only 230.4 However, there are two problems with using the LocalTalk port. They’re not made any more, but if you have one around, it could be worth trying. LocalTalk port (RS-422): This network port would seem to be a possibility, with the addition of an Ethernet-to-LocalTalk bridge from a manufacturer like Asante (look for the Asante FriendlyNet Ethernet to LocalTalk Bridge for more discussion, see the old and likely obsolete article “ Printer Sharing and Print Spooling in Mac OS X,” ).This particular printer has four possibilities beyond Ethernet: Since these older printers had to work with computers other than Macs (and because they were often based on hardware used by other cross-platform printer manufacturers), they often had other communication ports as well. But then how could my Mac talk to the PostScript interpreter and the print engine? So it was clear that I had to forget about the printer’s Ethernet port and the communication capabilities behind it. The LaserWriter Pro 630 predates the graphical Web browser, so Web configuration and the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) clearly weren’t options, and even TCP as transport layer wasn’t going to be available. (EtherTalk is AppleTalk over Ethernet, and is the weak link in this scenario.) It has a Canon EX print engine, a hardware PostScript Level 2 interpreter and a print server that can use only EtherTalk as a means of transport. Oddly, Apple claims that Snow Leopard includes the necessary software to print to the LaserWriter Pro 630, but the company doesn’t say how to work around the removal of the AppleTalk support necessary to communicate with the printer.īack to Basics - I started by considering what makes up a LaserWriter Pro 630. Although people with other old Apple printers may not be able to follow my path exactly, I hope my basic approach will help point in the right direction. After quite some effort, I was able to bring it back online and use it via Snow Leopard. That was the case for my beloved LaserWriter Pro 630, which I’ve used since 1994, but which I wasn’t able to print to once I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Although it’s become more difficult to find replacement toner cartridges, and they’re quite expensive when you do need to buy them, if the printer works well and does what you need (and if you don’t print a lot), it’s hard to justify junking it. But many older printers – the workhorses of the 1990s – are still humming along fine. But even though most networking devices stopped supporting AppleTalk long ago, largely due to improvements in other areas, one area where AppleTalk has long been used is in printers. One of the lesser-known changes in Snow Leopard is the removal of the old AppleTalk networking protocol, which Apple has deprecated for years.
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