philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (12/13/90)
I need to know the simplest way of sharing an Apple LaserWriter between a couple of Suns and a Mac. At the moment, it's being done by physically unplugging AppleTalk, plugging in a serial line to a Sun and setting the switch on the LaserWriter. I know there are products like LocalTalk/Ethernet gateways that allow this, but this seems like overkill. So - what "lightwight" solutions are there to this problem? I don't read this group regularly, so this may be a common question - if so, feel free to e-mail rather than post. -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
JS05STAF@MIAMIU.BITNET (Joe Simpson) (12/15/90)
This problem is of wide interest. I would appreciate responses to this posting directly to usenet news.
philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (12/15/90)
In article <1990Dec12.190707.21883@Neon.Stanford.EDU>, I wrote: |> I need to know the simplest way of sharing an Apple LaserWriter between |> a couple of Suns and a Mac. At the moment, it's being done by physically |> unplugging AppleTalk, plugging in a serial line to a Sun and setting the |> switch on the LaserWriter. I know there are products like LocalTalk/Ethernet |> gateways that allow this, but this seems like overkill. |> |> So - what "lightwight" solutions are there to this problem? I had lots of responses, plus a few requests for a summary, so here it is. The most interesting proposition so far is Janus, which appears to be about as lightweight as one could ask. Does anyone know if it's available from an ftp site? ------------------------------------------- From: Michael Squires <mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> 1. Buy a QMS 410, alleged to connect to both and switch as necessary 2. Buy TOPS for the Sun & Mac, need a LocalTalk/Ethernet bridge 3. Get Rutgers CAP sources, compile & run; LW connected to Sun as printer, Sun spool queue looks to Mac like a network printer. So far (3) looks like the best. -- Thanks for the reply - it's not clear to me though, using this CAPS option, how the Mac connects to the Sun - does the Mac need to be on ethernet? -- There are two versions of CAP; one requires a Kinetics FastPath running KIP which bridges LocalTalk to Ethernet. The other version uses "enet" filters in the kernel to snarf Ethertalk packets (Mac uses an Ethernet card). In both cases the printer is connected to the Sun via a serial line and driven by the standard spool mechanism. CAP requires some degree of UNIX guru-ism; TOPS appears to be pretty much a load-and-go thing, but it costs about $1000 more plus the bridge. If you have a lot of Macs it's cheaper to go with the bridge and keep the Macs on LocalTalk. --------------- From: Eric Clement <Eric.Clement@mirsa.inria.fr> We are using the "Janus" program that i got on comp.binaries.mac some months ago (years ???). It's wery light and reliable. Realy a fine peice of code. What it does ? : run in the backbround under multifinder, catch everything incoming via the modem port and sends it as appletalk packets to the laserwriter. If don't find where to download it from, i could sent it to you via mail. <followup: he's going away soon, and will only be able to send it to me in a few weeks> Eric. --------------- From: wiechman@cs.rutgers.edu (Kevin S. Wiechmann) You might like to look into a GatorBox running GatorPrint. This allows a Unix machine to come back through into an AppleTalk network for printing. The modifications are fairly simple and I think that they are all done in /etc/printcap. The GatorBox will set you back >$2K and then you'll need to buy the extra GatorPrint software. A second option would be to buy a GatorBox/Fastpath and install CAP. This will allow Macs to go up through the bridge and then join the Unix lpr queue. Cost is for based on what bridge you buy, and then installation time. --------------- From: Michael S. Maiten <msm@energetic.com> If you don't mind having to run an application or two on the MAC to dump the SUN print queue, I have just the thing for you. I have in my office a SUN, MAC, and a PC. The SUN and PC are connected via 9600 baud SLIP (Serial Line IP) PCNFS so they are essentially on one network and share printer services transparently. The MAC is connected to the SUN via a 19.2K baud RS232 serial port. The printer queue on the SUN is set to queue and hold until a particular login occurs (from the MAC) and it then transfers the printer queue (translating everything to postscript as it does this) via kermit to the MAC (This is an automated process started by the MAC user pulling down a menu selection in Versaterm). After the print queue has been transferred, then the MAC user runs a postscript downloader to send the print queue to the printer. This requires a special set up (print queue magic and special login) on the SUN and the necessary postscript generation software (you can use public domain tools) on the SUN. It also requires a postscript downloader and a terminal emulator with command scripts on the MAC (I use distillps and versaterm). This would be simplified if you had a MAC TCP with SLIP (does one exist?) and an LPR daemon (there is an LPR daemon sold by Wollongong, but it requires ethernet; if you have ethernet in your MAC then the Wollongong product is exactly what you need). -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
kenw@noah.arc.ab.ca (Ken Wallewein) (12/17/90)
Just a caution: anything between a Mac and a LaserWriter other than pure network (AppleTalk, EtherTalk, IPTalk, tunnelling, etc.) is likely to cause problems with certain aspects of Mac printing, like printer-requested downloaded fonts. Macs sometimes want to have conversations with their printers; having another processor in between functioning as other than a pure network device may cause it to break. I don't know of _any_ Unix-, VMS-, or Mac-based implementation which avoids this limitation. It's beginning to look like the best place for a printer is on an Apple/EtherTalk network. Nearly anything can get at it there, with no limitations on functionality. /kenw Ken Wallewein A L B E R T A kenw@noah.arc.ab.ca R E S E A R C H (403)297-2660 C O U N C I L