mattie@SUN1.CHEM.UPENN.EDU (Renee Mattie) (03/28/89)
Thanks for all your suggestions on how to cheaply set up an apple Laserwriter to print both for a mac and for a Sun network. As it turned out, we took the simplest, least transparant route -- plugging the Sun with the print queue into the 25-pin port (using a null modem cable, of course), and the mac into the other. We keep the printer switched to the 9600-baud setting. Someone desiring to print from the mac will have to switch the printer back to the appletalk setting and then back to 9600 it after he is done. We don't do very much printing from the Mac, so it works out OK for us. I did receive some useful suggestions on other ways to set things up: Werner@astro.as.utexas.edu suggested assuming you (also) do not print LOTS and LOTS (most stuff?) from the MAC, you may like my setup: hook up the Mac's modem port to a/the SUN's serial port which allows you to access the SUN with some terminal-emulating software (There are several free ones, such as Kermit and FreeTerm and some DAs, plus many ShareWare and commercial ones). Then capture what you want to print on the Mac to a PostScript-file (using the often and repeatedly discussed trick with the Command-K or Command-F during the Print-dialogue), upload that file to the SUN and have the SUN printspool it (the needed software is PD and available from many sources on and off the Internet). Keeping some PS-files on the SUN which are sometimes needed to prepend to print-files to, properly, initialize the printer is a smart and time-saving idea as you can reduce the size of files to upload. M. A. Pasek (Pasek@c10sd3.StPaul.NCR.COM) seconded that suggestion, and also suggested >... On the other hand, if you can spare about $500, look into a Cayman Systems >GatorBox (if you've got Sun 3/50's, $500 should be pocket change! :-) ). >This will allow you to link your AppleTalk network (where the LaserWriter >resides), and your Ethernet (where your Suns reside). Although not >exactly "available" yet, Cayman is promising software to do the >Sun-on-Ethernet to LaserWriter-on-AppleTalk thing by the end of the first >quarter (like, within a month or so). Even without this software, the >Gatorbox sure makes it easy to share files between the Mac and the Sun, >and to make your Sun server a GIANT disk drive for your Mac. Hal Stern (Stern %polygon@Princeton.EDU) suggests something similar, but more transparant from the MAC end, because it uses the printer port rather than the modem port: >have one of your hardware droids make up a 9-pin din to 25-pin >d-hood serial cable that looks like a null modem (there are schematics >for this in various books, esp. inside macintosh). >then plug one end into the printer port, and the other into a serial >port on the sun. have one of the undergrad or grad student droids >write up a simple shell/c program that listens on the serial port, >and pipes all data coming through right to the laserprinter using >"lpr". then just plug the laserwriter into the suns, and never >bother with it - use the sun as a print server. He says he is working on the software support on the sun side, so I assume he will post it when he has worked all the bugs out.