blm@aquarium.ecn.purdue.edu (Brian L Moore) (11/27/90)
Does anyone have a non-Apple printer connected to an SE? If you do, I would like to know: 1. What brand and model is the printer? 2. Do you need any printer interfaces and/or special cables? 3. Are you using one of Apple's standard print drivers? If not, what are you using and how reliable is it? Is it compatible with most software packages? 4. Have you ever had any problems? Thanks in advance for your help, -blm -- Brian L. Moore, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906 internet: blm@ecn.purdue.edu BITNET: BMOORE@PURCCVM
cheshire@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Stuart David Cheshire) (11/27/90)
In article <blm.659680871@aquarium.ecn.purdue.edu> blm@aquarium.ecn.purdue.edu (Brian L Moore) writes: >Does anyone have a non-Apple printer connected to an SE? If you do, I would >like to know: > 1. What brand and model is the printer? > 2. Do you need any printer interfaces and/or special cables? > 3. Are you using one of Apple's standard print drivers? If not, > what are you using and how reliable is it? Is it compatible > with most software packages? > 4. Have you ever had any problems? > I have an Epson FX-850, 9-pin dot matrix printer, because that was what I owned before I bought my Mac. Then I opened my Mac manuals and found that Apple did not support my printer, an Epson, the most popular brand of printer in the world. This annoyed me (my Mac Plus was all I could afford, I had no money to buy an Apple printer too, and this was before the era of Grappler, Printworks et al.) so I thought "Fine, I'll write a driver myself, how hard can it be?" The answer is "Pretty hard." Alternative approach: Use the Imagewriter LQ driver to produce 216 dpi bitmap data, and write an INIT which traps writes to the serial ports and translates the control codes to Epson control codes instead. Turns out to be much easier, and there is a free bonus: Guaranteed compatibility with any application which works with Apple's Imagewriter LQ driver (should be all of them). On my 9-pin Epson the INIT (called 'Witch') does three passes of the print head, moving the paper forward slightly each time, to match the Imagewriter LQ's 24-pin print head, producing the same quality on a printer costing less than 1/3 the price. Lots of people asked for copies because they were amazed by the quality I got out of a 9-pin printer, so I added a Control Panel interface, and generally tidied it up and got it into a usable state so I could give them copies. Someone with a 24-pin Epson asked for it too, so I added code to support those printers too, and while I was doing it, I added HP LaserJet and Kyocera modes as well. The laser printer modes turned out to be a bit of a waste of time, since I can't get better than 216 dpi printout and the laser printers are capable of 300 dpi, and the printing is limited by the speed of the serial port, which means that the laser printers turn out even slower than the Epsons becase they have more bitmap data to be sent. For anyone who is interested, a demonstration version should be available shortly on "sumex.stanford.edu", if it is not there yet, I can send copies by e-mail. (Note: you will need a serial interface in your printer, and a suitable lead to connect it to the Macintosh. ) Stuart Cheshire (cheshire@cs.stanford.edu)
wolfson@motcid.UUCP (Steve Wolfson) (12/01/90)
blm@aquarium.ecn.purdue.edu (Brian L Moore) writes: >Does anyone have a non-Apple printer connected to an SE? If you do, I would >like to know: > 1. What brand and model is the printer? > 2. Do you need any printer interfaces and/or special cables? > 3. Are you using one of Apple's standard print drivers? If not, > what are you using and how reliable is it? Is it compatible > with most software packages? > 4. Have you ever had any problems? I have an EPSON LQ-800. Epson sells a driver and cable for all serial LQ printers. The driver is well written. It includes page previewer and a bunch of fonts that are customized to work properly with proportional spacing on an Epson printer. All digitized fonts work as well. You can also map Mac Fonts to internal fonts of the printer for drafts and faster printing. I have had a problem with check printing in Quicken 1.5. But Mac Write, Draw etc all seem to work fine. Cost is $54 from Mac Connection. - Steve Wolfson, wolfson@mot.com