alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (08/29/90)
woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal) writes: >If you hook up to the 25 pin serial port in interactive terminal mode, AND >you jumper pin 4 to pin pin 22, and power the laser up, you will come >up in the RED STONE monitor. Uuuuh--is this the reason there's an ADB connector on all LaserWriter II series machines? So you can hook a video-out adapter to the laser feed and a keyboard to the ADB port and debug the printer? That's half a :-), by the way. I'm still clueless why there IS an ADB port on the furshlugginer printer. Alex -- Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others ...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979 fax: (818) 794-2297 bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3
fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) (08/29/90)
Alex, The canonical explanation for the ADB ports on LaserWriters is to control the plethora of third-party envelope feeders, bin feeders, continuous-feed rollers, and other aftermarket goodies that are crowding dealer shelves. What? Not at -your- dealer? Well, you're obviously not patronizing dnalretupmoC. Right this way, through the Looking Glass... +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+ | Stephen Fleming | In ten years, computers will just be | | fleming@cup.portal.com | bumps in cables. --Gordon Bell | | CI$: 76354,3176 +-------------------------------------------| | BIX: srfleming | My employers may disagree vehemently. | +--------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) (08/31/90)
fleming@cup.portal.com (Stephen R Fleming) writes: >Alex, >The canonical explanation for the ADB ports on LaserWriters is to control >the plethora of third-party envelope feeders, bin feeders, continuous-feed >rollers, and other aftermarket goodies that are crowding dealer shelves. >What? Not at -your- dealer? Well, you're obviously not patronizing >dnalretupmoC. Right this way, through the Looking Glass... Thanks to the six (including Stephen) people who reported this answer to a really obscure one! And they say USENET isn't valuable.... One person mentioned he'd seen this info on a brochure for a sheet-feeder, so p'haps one exists. And copy-controls, LCD displays, bin selectors, etc--at least, those were suggestions. Another mentioned that some used ADB to communicate directly with the printer; is this actually faster than AppleTalk? I'm still wondering why you can't use SCSI to talk to your LW IINTX; I'm also wondering why your font cache can't live on your computer's hard disk. (Doubtless several people will call me nieve, which is one reason that USENET is called USELESSNET by its detractors.) >| Stephen Fleming | In ten years, computers will just be | >| fleming@cup.portal.com | bumps in cables. --Gordon Bell | In ten years, lawyers will just be bumps in roads. --Shakespeare In ten years, computers will say, "Cables? Where we're going, we don't need cables." --Nobody, yet Alex -- Alex Pournelle, freelance thinker Also: Workman & Associates, Data recovery for PCs, Macs, others ...elroy!grian!alex; BIX: alex; voice: (818) 791-7979 fax: (818) 794-2297 bbs: 791-1013; 8N1 24/12/3
minow@mountn.dec.com (Martin Minow) (09/04/90)
In article <1990Aug31.082117.6829@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us> alex@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us (Alex Pournelle) writes: > >I'm still wondering why you can't use SCSI to talk to your LW IINTX; I'm >also wondering why your font cache can't live on your computer's hard >disk. One good reason why font caches ought not to reside on the Mac hard disk is that the Mac OS wasn't setup to handle multiple SCSI bus initiators, and you're liable to have wierd crashes if you do SCSI operations when the system isn't expecting it. Since hard disks are hovering around $10/Mbyte quantity one, I would think that using the main system's disk as a font cache would be false economy. If nothing else, the Laserwriter's font accesses will slow the system down somewhat. > (Doubtless several people will call me nieve, which is one reason >that USENET is called USELESSNET by its detractors.) You're neive. Martin Minow minow@bolt.enet.dec.com