omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) (08/31/90)
Larry Pina's newest book, Macintosh Printer Secrets, Howard W. Sams ISBN 0-672-48463-3 should be out on the streets as you read this. As in his first book, Macintosh Repair & Upgrade Secrets, Larry provides what I consider to be the ultimate reference for ImageWriter, ImageWriter II, and ImageWriter LQ repair, maintenance, and use. Claimer: I was the technical reviewer for the book, and assisted Larry (very slightly) with some technical analysis. However, my fee for reviewing is already paid, and I will get no further income from any sales of the book. While reviewing the book, I actually followed Larry's instructions on disassembling my ImageWriter II and found out that, without the book or other knowledge, such disassembly would have been almost impossible due to the IW's design (you have to remove screws from the feet and then grab and twist the feet a certain way - it's very well hidden.) If you have an ImageWriter, you'll get your money back from the book the first time you have to remove a label stuck behind the platen. Unlike Larry's first book, soldering skills are not required and most of the repairing can be done with ordinary tools (that which can't, like Printhead repair - Larry gives a list of repair houses who can repair or swap the printhead for much lower prices than a trip to an authorized dealer would cost.) Unfortunately, laser printers are not included in the scope of this book (however, I hope he gets the opportunity to write a laser printer version.) but he covers some other printers: the Kodak Diconix M150 Plus, the Hewlett Packard DeskWriter and the Toshiba P321/P341 printers to some extent. He also covers Epson compatible printing on the Mac using third party software drivers. The contains in the appendix lists of the control codes for ImageWriter, IWII, IWLQ and Epson printers. Price is $34.95, includes a disk with diagnostic software. -Owen Owen Hartnett omh@cs.brown.edu.CSNET Brown University Computer Science omh@cs.brown.edu uunet!brunix!omh "Don't wait up for me tonight because I won't be home for a month."