brainard@cyan.stanford.edu (David Brainard) (05/27/89)
I don't know what the current TOPS offerings are, but there is a product called KSPOOL (made by Kinetics) that allows this. We use KSPOOL to print from the MAC to a LaserWriter attatched by a serial line to a SUN. KSPOOL's primary purpose in life is to let SUNs print to LaserWriters that are attatched to MACs, but it also works the other way. KSPOOL is compatible with TOPS, which we also run. We are using a Kinetics EtherPort II card as our interface to the wire, but as I understand it the stuff will all work if you connect your Appletalk network to the wire through a Kinetics Fastpath box. Although the software was a little tricky to install, the only serious problem we have encountered is that the symbol font does not print correctly for some of its characters. I think the problem has to do with the way Kinetics emulates the PostScript Dictionary that the MAC assumes is loaded into the LaserWriter. Kinetics claims it works fine for them, but haven't been much help for us. (To calibrate your judgment about whether this is because I am incompetent, I note that the Kinetics tech support people once referred one of their customers to me for help installing KSPOOL because they felt I knew more about it than they did.) Also, we had to use version 5.1 of the LaserPrep files, as neither versions 5.0 or 5.2 would work right with the Kinetics software. Perhaps they have fixed one or both of these problems by now, I've put off worrying about for a while. Kinetics's phone number is (415) 947-0998. David Brainard brainard@white.stanford.edu