[comp.sys.mac.misc] Mac driver for HP deskjet - does HP supply one?y

pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au (10/24/90)

In article <2171@tnoibbc.UUCP>, hin@tnoibbc.UUCP (Hin Oey) writes:
> In article <949@idcapd.idca.tds.philips.nl> wilko@idca.tds.PHILIPS.nl (W.C. Bulte) writes:
>>A friend of mine recently bought a HP Deskjet printer. He is now looking for 
> 
> Recently I heard that the Dutch Mac users group has a Finish
> HP Deskjet driver on their BBS.

There are four ways that I know of to go:

1. The PD driver ('freeware') by Olli Arnberg and another guy whose name I 
forget, available on SUMEX's info-mac
	- has screen dump ability
	- you can choose resolution as 75dpi,150dpi or 300dpi
	- can't print in landscape mode
	- works with ATM or other larger-size fonts needed for the 
	  non-postscript 300 dpi fonts
	- 5 mins per full text or graphics page in 300dpi mode
	- but has 'draft' mode of 2 pages per minute in the built-in 
	  COURIER (i.e. equivalent to a daisy wheel output)
2. MacPrint by Insight Development (about $US110 mail order)
	- _can_ use printer cartridge fonts (&therefore be VERY FAST at 
	  300dpi - say 40 secs per page)
	- normal speed of 300dpi Mac fonts: 4 mins per page
	- works with ATM
3. JetLink Express by GDT Softworks (about $US100 mail order)
	- comes with its own scalable fonts, so no _need_ to get ATM (but 
	  they are apparently not nearly as good as Adobe's fonts
	- works with ATM
	- can, if used with a DeskJet Plus, or I presume a DeskJet 500, 
	  print very fast with the addition of a serial-to-parallel converter 
	  to use the faster communications mode of these two printers (no 
	  help with the DeskJet)
4. Grappler by Orange Micro (about $US100 mail order)
	- unlike any of the others, this one emulates an ImageWriter LQ so 
	  that it has its own driver working on top of the LQ's driver
	  (the others are new chooser-level drivers)
	- has a spooling CDEV included in the price which enables the slow
	  5 mins per page to be done in the background, whether or not 
	  you're using Multifinder

They all work - from all acoounts the MacPrint is the best unless you have 
the DJ+ and a serial-to-parallel converter and ATM, in which case the 
JetLink Express is thought to be the best (since its the fastest). The 
Grappler is a bit buggy, but I have had no major problems with it. I also 
use the freeware driver, but it can't print in landscape, and HyperCard 
1.2.5 can;t print to it since it thinks that the driver is a type of 
imagewriter, and the imagewriter for HC must be later than 2.5 (and the 
freeware driver is 'version 2.1').

Any other details, just email me.
[I have a Mac SE, 2.5 Meg Ram, 40 Meg HD, DeskJet]
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Phil Ryan                                         
ANU Department of Physics and Theoretical Physics 
Canberra, Australia                               
pfr654@csc.anu.oz.au   phone:(61 6) 249 4678   fax:(61 6) 249 0741