ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Arthur Ogawa) (02/10/91)
I have a small business with a handful of Macs and a LaserWriter II NTX. Thanks to the great posts here, I am now clear on buying a NeXT. I do want to be able to print to the LaserWriter, though. If I connect the LaserWriter to the NeXT's serial port, I'd need to have the box also act as a sort of LocalTalk print server for the Macs. That would be cool--has anybody done this? If I leave the LaserWriter on LocalTalk, I will need to hook the NeXT up to LocalTalk as if it were just another Mac. This seems much less likely, but has this been done? If there is just no way to network the computers to this printer, I'll buy a NeXT printer, but reluctantly. E-mail to me; I summarize to the net given interest. TIA.
rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) (02/12/91)
In article <1991Feb10.093245.27734@news.arc.nasa.gov> ogawa@orion.arc.nasa.gov (Arthur Ogawa) writes: >I have a small business with a handful of Macs and a LaserWriter II NTX. >Thanks to the great posts here, I am now clear on buying a NeXT. I do want >to be able to print to the LaserWriter, though. > [...] > >If there is just no way to network the computers to this printer, I'll >buy a NeXT printer, but reluctantly. There are two things you can do: either wait until sometime this year NeXT distributes the free AppleTalk client/server software and the Novell client software. Then everything you need is an ethernet adapter for one of your Macs. The other thing you can do is to get the GatorBox (look for it in the product catalog), then you can do this stuff right now, but at a price of 2795$. In the long run you are best off getting the NeXT Laser printer. It upgrades continously to the newest version of PostScript (each time you get a new OS version), you have a higher print resolution (400dpi). So it might be the cheapest solution to get the NeXT laser now and as soon as you have the AppleTalk software, sell your NTX. Ronald ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." G.B. Shaw | rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet