Info-Mac 1992 August/info-mac-1992.iso/Report/Mac Laser Jet Up Rev 1.1.txt

Internet Message Format | 1992-08-28 | 43KB

Date: Fri, 29 May 1992 04:18:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Richard Sucgang <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mac/LaserJet UpRev v1.1


This is an update to the current article in info-mac/report
It should replace the file mac-laser-jet-up-rev.txt.

The Mac/LaserJet UpRev is a review kept current which
addresses the problem of using a Hewlett Packard LaserJet
with Macintoshes, concentrating primarily on the original
LaserJet series II. This is version 1.1, and is a major revision.
More than twice the number of products are described and reviewed.

-rich
Richard Sucgang : Dept. of Anatomy and Cell Biology
Columbia University ([e-mail];
de slime god         [e-mail])

begin Mac/LaserJet UpRev v1.1:

The Uneasy Marriage : using an HP LaserJet series II with a
Macintosh

Introduction:

The LaserJet series II is a sturdily built machine, and many of the
originals been humming along for quite some time. The one we have
in the lab served us quite well for basic word processing with some
PC clones for some years. With the arrival of the Macintosh IIsi,
however, we were suddenly confronted with the problem of printing
using the LaserJet. The option of purchasing a new printer was out
of the question, and, in the process of determining the best
solution for the current dilemma, I found out that there are many
users in similar situations. This documents the different solutions
I have found to using a LaserJet II (and other low end models) with
a Macintosh in what I call an updatable review: a simple text
document with version numbers to keep it up to date.

This is version is 1.1, first released on May 28, 1992. There are
many new revisions in this version, particularly descriptions of
some new products, and very helpful responses from other people.
While I probably did not expend much time programming this, I did
spend quite some time researching and calling and writing to
companies and reading to write this, so, if this up-rev has helped
you, please drop me a line. If you have any further information,
please forward them to me. Contact information at the end of this
document. In the future, I plan to write this into a Hypercard
stack, so hang in there!

Background:

The primary obstacle in getting older LaserJets to communicate with
a Macintosh is that Macintoshes communicate with laser printers
primarily using PostScript, Adobe's industry standard page
description language, and Hewlett-Packard pioneered the use of PCL
as the page description language of LaserJets. Officially, HP never
intended the original LaserJet series II to interpret PostScript,
and, in effect, do not really support it in this respect. HP makes
PostScript cartridges as upgrades for the LaserJets IIP and IID,
and distributes drivers for them. Call them at [phone]
(customer service), [phone] (printer support), or (303) 353-
7650. Printer drivers are also available at Compuserve under GO
HPPER. [thanks to Isako Hoshino ([e-mail]) for this
information].

To start figuring out how to use our Mac IIsi with our LaserJet
series II (the original, discontinued), I checked out a good review
of connecting Macintoshes to LaserJets that was published in an
early issue of MacUser (May, 1991). However, the review seemed to
concentrate on the currently supported LaserJets (IIp, IId, III,
etc.), and not the more vintage models. Further, opinions were
light, and not as thorough as I would have liked. It does provide
a good listing of company as sources of solutions. In addition to
this, Tom Lane ([e-mail]) used to maintain a FAQ
(fequently asked questions) list in sumex-aim.stanford.edu
(36.44.0.6) as info-mac/report/hp-laserjet.txt which is still an
excellent introduction and overview of the problems and solutions.
Tom has kindly given me permission to use the article; I will be
using excerpts throughout this version. Thank you, Tom!

<begin Tom Lane's introduction to Mac printer drivers>

A LITTLE BACKGROUND: MAC PRINTER DRIVERS

The key piece of Mac software for printing is a "printer driver".
A printer driver takes drawing commands produced by a Mac
application and translates them into commands understood by a
printer.  The icons you see when you open the Chooser DA correspond
to different printer drivers.  When you say "Print", the
application sends its drawing commands to the printer driver
currently selected by the Chooser; the printer driver in turn sends
commands to the physical printer.  This lets the application be
independent of the printer you use (in theory, anyway).

Mac applications can produce two kinds of drawing commands:
Quickdraw commands and PostScript commands.  All printer drivers
accept Quickdraw commands, but interpreting PostScript commands
requires a large and complex piece of software (the "PostScript
interpreter", which is built into PostScript printers).  Currently,
printer drivers for PostScript printers simply pass PostScript
drawing commands straight through to the printer; drivers for
non-PostScript printers reject PostScript drawing commands
altogether.  Hence you cannot print PostScript images on
non-PostScript printers.  [Some printer drivers containing
PostScript interpreters are starting to appear; one is "Freedom of
Press" from Custom Applications. These interpreters are not real
Adobe PostScript, and so probably have compatibility problems.  I'd
appreciate getting details on how well FoP and the others work.]

Apple includes printer drivers for all its printers with the
regular Mac system software.  The Apple ImageWriter drivers and the
LaserWriter IISC driver are each specific to one kind of printer
(all of these are non-PostScript printers).  But the regular
LaserWriter driver can be used with any PostScript printer, because
the PostScript printer command language is standardized.

To use a non-Apple printer, you can either make it look like one of
the Apple printers at the hardware level (and then use that Apple
printer driver), or you can use a non-Apple printer driver that
emits the right kind of commands for that printer.  Products exist
that take each of these approaches.  Hardware-level approaches can
be further broken down into "PostScript" and "other" (other being
ImageWriter or IISC compatibles). The advantage of PostScript is
that you get to use PostScript graphics. PostScript fonts used to
be restricted to PS printers, but with the appearance of Adobe Type
Manager (ATM), PS fonts can be used with other printers too; so
that advantage is less significant than it used to be.

VERY IMPORTANT FACT:  Many Mac applications do not work very well
with non-Apple printer drivers.  (HyperCard and many Microsoft
applications are particularly blatant offenders.)  This is partly
Apple's fault; they never published a well-defined standard for
printer drivers.  Because of this, if you have a compatibility
problem between an application and a non-Apple printer driver, it's
hard to fix the blame for the problem.  In my experience, it's
tough to get satisfaction from either the application's
manufacturer or the printer driver's manufacturer; you tend to get
finger-pointing on both sides.  This is a very strong reason for
taking the hardware-level adaptation approach; then you use an
Apple driver, and you can blame the application if it has trouble
printing. It is rumored that Apple is working on a new,
better-documented printer driver definition.  When that appears (at
last report it will not be in time for System 7.0), compatibility
problems should lessen, but not until application *and* printer
driver writers revise their code to use the new definition.  In the
short run the new definition will probably create compatibility
problems of its own --- another reason to stick to hardware-level
solutions.  [If anyone out there knows specifics about the new
print architecture and can talk, I'd appreciate hearing about
possible compatibility problems.]
<end excerpt>

PRODUCTS THAT ARE IN THE MARKET

Without resorting to PostScript, solutions generally involve
converting QuickDraw images into TIFF equivalents, and transmitting
this through the serial connection. This, of course, means that
these solutions are very slow. When resorting to PostScript, there
are two paths, either to interpret the code on the Mac, and
transmit the resulting image as TIFF (even slower) or upgrading the
hardware to include a PostScript interpreter.

I have tried to provide as extensive a description of each of the
products available. Unless indicated, I do not claim to have
directly tested each product. As much as possible, though, I read
the user manual, and correspond with the maker to make as accurate
a summary as possible.

Each product description/review is separated with two periods (..).
The products described here are:

QuickDraw:

     a. MacPrint
     b. Grappler
     c. MacJET and PacificConnect
     d. GDT JetLink Express

PostScript:

     a. Freedom of Press Lite
     b. TScript
     c. HP PostScript cartridges
     d. Adobe's PostScript cartridge
     e. PacificPage and PacificConnect and/or PacificTalk
     f. BridgePort

QuickDraw:

..
A. MacPrint : I got this piece of software at an incredible $31
sale price from Mac's Place (800-367-4222); I doubt if it has
remained at this price. MacPrint 1.2 is the version I used, and
comes with drivers for a variety of non-Macintosh printers,
including the LaserJet II, IIp, IId, LaserJet+, and other PCL
printers, and the necessary DIN-8 to DB-25 connector for hooking up
to the serial port of the LJ II. An upgrade to 1.3 has appeared
since (although Insight has failed to inform me of the upgrade,
take this as a hint about customer support), so some new features
may have been added, most notably on the System 7 compatibility
front. The manual was fairly easy to follow, although I think it
fails to provide any usable technical information on the workings
of the program. For example, an extremely useful piece of
information that was missing was the pin configuration of the
cable.

Basically, the program claims to work by translating QuickDraw into
PCL, first creating the raster image on the Mac, and transmitting
it to the LaserJet. The user has the option of generating 75 dpi,
150 dpi or 300 dpi printouts (I guess screen, 24 pin dot matrix and
laser printer resolutions), requiring progressively longer amounts
of time to finish printing. Higher resolutions, then, come from
scaling the page 4 fold to generate the 300 dpi output from a 72
dpi screen QuickDraw display. Bitmapped fonts can only be used if
there is a size version 4x the size of the original; with the use
of System 7 and TrueType, one could print fonts at any size with
glee. The program *does* come with support for built in and
cartridge supported fonts, and mixing fonts on the same page is
possible.

With increasing resolution comes increasing demands printer RAM; we
had to upgrade to 2.5 Mb before full page graphics would print.
With 512 Kb, usually the page would print until the current memory
is full, at which time the printer will spit the unfinished page
out, and finish it on another page. Using internal and cartridge
fonts will lower the RAM requirement, but that wastes the wide
array of fonts available for the Macintosh. We generally could make
do with text, though, and 150 dpi is not too shabby.

Paint objects, of course, print out at 72 dpi all the time,
although draw graphics can print out at 300 dpi. As with all
QuickDraw to TIFF translators, an interesting bug appears with fill
patterns : as resolution goes up, fill patterns become smaller
instead of just becoming higher in resolution. For example, a fill
pattern of a dot every 16 dots in screen will print as a dot every
4 dots at 300 dpi.

The biggest problem with MacPrint and similar software is that it
really ties up your Mac. The program does not have its own
background printing and does not indicate if 3rd party spoolers
will work. I have not tested any.

Known bug: the driver should be left in the *root* System folder
under Sys 7.*. This could not be more strongly stressed. Many
people curse and scream just because the smart System folder files
it under Extensions, and the manual does not point out this flaw
(actually, the manual does not make a lot of mention of System 7).
Version 1.3 is the most current version, and I do not know if this
has been fixed.

<opinion mode> In some ads (most notably, from MacZone or
MacWareHouse), it is claimed that MacPrint does not need
PostScript. Of course, since it does not SUPPORT PostScript. If you
have ATM or TrueType, this is a good product for $31, tho. In
general, it is a good product, with lots of fairly satisfied users,
and pretty much bug free. It makes a good standby as a printer
driver, although one should be prepared to wait awhile to get
printouts.

MacPrint : Published by Insight Development Corp., [phone].
Latest version : 1.3

MacConnection price, as of April, 1992: $92

..
B. Grappler

<begin excerpt from Tom Lane>

Grappler is an external box that converts Apple ImageWriter print
data into LJ commands.  (There are Grappler versions for other
popular printers too.) It uses the Apple "ImageWriter LQ" printer
driver, but modifies the driver slightly so that it uses the
correct page size and resolution for the printer.  (For example,
with an LJ a 300dpi image needs to be produced, not the 216dpi used
by the ImageWriter LQ.  Apparently the driver is written in such a
way that this change is easy to make.)

The data being sent to the printer is bitmaps, so speed leaves
something to be desired, and you need adequate memory in the
printer (Orange Micro recommends 1Mb minimum).

<end excerpt>

There are currently two models of the Grappler, the 9pin for 9 pin
dot matrix printers, and the IIsp, for 24 pin, inkjet and laser
printers. I will disregard the 9pin; LaserJets can be used through
the IIsp. I did not test a Grappler; the manufacturer, Orange Micro
Inc., was kind enough to provide a copy of the user's manual.

Strictly speaking, the Grappler is the cable itself that connects
the serial port of the Mac to the parallel port of the LaserJet. It
converts the serial signal to parallel at 57.6K baud; much higher
than is possible with other QuickDraw solutions. It also has four
TrueType fonts built in (Times, Helvetica, Courier and Symbol),
which would speed up text printing.

On the software side, as Tom mentioned, the Grappler modifies
Apple's own ImageWriter LQ driver for use with different printers.
In addition, Orange Micro also incorporates a spooler and support
for AppleTalk networks. This is controlled from a cdev after
choosing the ImageWriter LQ driver from the Chooser. It is possible
to choose to use either the best (slowest) 300 dpi mode, faster (72
dpi) mode, or draft, which simply utilizes built in fonts in the
LaserJet. There is no support for PostScript, although it is fully
compatible with ATM.

<opinion mode> A combination hardware and software solution, the
Grappler is one of the better products in the market in terms of
bang for the buck. It is simple to use, and very well documented.
By directing output to a parallel connection, sharing a LaserJet
with PCs is a cinch with an external switchbox (HP's officially
discourages the use of manual switchboxes which can generate
current spikes; autoswitchers are okay). By introducing
GrapplerShare, sharing with other Macs can be done via LocalTalk
connections. The brief manual even describes the pinouts at both
ends of the cable. I recommend it for people who want the easiest
route to being able to use their LaserJets, without having to deal
with too many technical details, and will not be wanting
PostScript.

The Grappler IIsp is made by Orange Micro, Inc., 1400 Lakeview
Ave., Anaheim, CA 92807. [phone]. Suggested list price :
$159.

..
C. MacJET and PacificConnect :

Note: This is my current solution, and brought tons of relief from
other members of the lab. PacificConnect is not normally
recommended by Mac mavens, since it is usually classified as a DOS
product. It is an optional I/O board for the LJ II, which provides
the LJ with 4 serial connections via RJ-11 (telephone wire) jacks,
and a parallel port (standard DB-25). The serial ports are
configurable up to 115.2 K baud, although the Macintosh software
only supports 9.6 K and 19.2 K baud (more on this later). It also
comes with a built in buffer, with either 256Kb or 1.25Mb, and
automatic switching between serial and parallel ports. The package
came with what would be needed to connect 4 PC's and 1 Mac to the
LaserJet, containing both long cables and adaptors to convert DIN
8/ DB 25/ DB 9 to RJ-11's. Initially, I had some problems with the
hardware, which I traced to the RJ-11/Din 8 connector, but that was
a minor story that was fairly easily resolved.

For sharing PC's, the PacificConnect board is excellent, and has
quite a number of similar competitors. What sets it apart is the
software. The configuration and setup for the PC is fairly
straightforward.

For Macintoshes, two drivers were provided: MacJET, a QuickDraw
driver written by Computer:Applications, and MacPage, the
PostScript driver for use with the PacificPage PostScript emulation
cartridge. In the absence of the cartridge, I was unable to test
the MacPage software, although technical support assures me that
only the PacificPage cartridge can be used with it.

MacJET: This software was for a large part a mystery to me until
recently. PDP's Customer Support insisted that it is incompatible
with System 7 and TrueType, and generally were of no help with
bugs. Recently, in a Boston trade journal, I noticed the
announcement of a major upgrade to a product called MacJET, and
remembered a similar announcement in MacWEEK a few months ago. I
checked the manual, and, in small print, it acknowledges that the
copyright of MacJET belonged to a company named
Computer:Applications. Calling up PDP, it appears that they ship a
version of it with every board, but do not support it thereafter;
in fact, the manual does not indicate where to contact
Computer:Applications, and PDP's technical support were even unsure
who wrote the software, and how the licensing agreement is like!
After an insistent phone call, I was called back, and given the
phone number and address of Computer:Applications. It appears that
PDP ships out MacJET version 2.3, and the the current shipping
version is 3.2, and is fully System 7 compatible. While PDP does
not seem to update this, owners of the PacificConnect board are
eligible for upgrades at $29.95 plus shipping. As of this writing,
I have sent for the upgrade, but I will give my impressions on
version 2.3.

MacJET comes in two pieces: a Chooser level driver, and a cdev to
control it. The control panel sets the baud rate which the
Macintosh communicates, which can be at 9600 or 19200 baud. It also
controls how printer memory and fonts are handled. The driver comes
with a set of PCL downloadable bitmapped fonts and it is possible
to substitute fonts to speed up printing. Unfortunately, we found
that this results in loss of WYSIWIG output, and that the
downloadable did not contain the full LW set of characters, so
special characters do not print. When fonts are not downloaded,
MacJET images the whole page as a TIFF file, and downloads it as a
graphic to the printer. This is slow in 300 dpi mode, but results
are acceptable. Supposedly, the latest version is able to create
downloadable fonts from TrueType, similar to what Windows 3.1 does.

Color can be printed as grays, although I found this to be rather
buggy. There is a 50% reduction option, as well as a draft mode
which uses whatever default font the LaserJet is on. The driver can
also use the built in line drawing routines in PCL4 of the
LaserJet, which helps accelerate certain graphic printing.

Since PDP did not write this software, it is not possible to
configure the ports of the board using the Macintosh. Setting up
the useable configuration requires a DOS based machine (I am unsure
whether a SoftPC emulation will be sufficient.). The fact that at
least one DOS based PC is required to configure ports is not
explicitly stated is something I consider very misleading.

In a mixed environment, switching between the different PCs is easy
and requires minimum maintenance after initial configuration. The
buffers automatically queues jobs, and prints them in order,
although the slow output from the Mac can back things up
significantly. In my opinion, PDP's customer support is somewhat
weak; if you are at all technically proficient, you can fly circles
around the tech support staff. It appears that technical support is
geared more for Windows users, and not Macintoshes. Getting through
on the phone is the first challenge; on the several occasions I
called, I had to wait over 15 mins on hold before getting the
operator - and this is NOT a toll free call. At least twice I was
told that the person I was talking to did not have the necessary
expertise to assist me on my question, and was promised a return
call. No return calls were received.

All in all, though, the board is a good solution for a mixed
environment, since it effectively provides smart switching to the
LaserJet II. It takes quite a bit of time to figure out the
Macintosh side of it, though, since PDP does not seem to be
particularly Mac friendly. As a hardware solution, the
PacificConnect board is the best thing for a mixed environment;
just choose a different software driver for the Mac.

PacificConnect is made by Pacific Data Products, 619-552-0880. PC
Connection May 1992 price is $275 for 256K buffer, and $349 for
1.25Mb. Buffer memory is upgradeable.

MacJET is made by Computer:Applications, 12813 Lindley Drive,
Raleigh, NC 27614. [phone]. Upgrade price is $29.95 plus
shipping with the return of the original program disks. Product
does not seem to be carried by most mail-order companies.

..
D. JetLink Express
Note: I do not have any direct experience with GDT's products, and
am expecting correspondence from them. Meanwhile, I will include an
excerpt from Tom Lane's original article. Please note that this
article is over a year old, and information may no longer be
accurate. However, I think it still provides a good idea of what
the product is like.

<begin excerpt>
JETLINK EXPRESS:

JetLink Express (JLE) lists at $149 from GDT Softworks, (604)
291-9121; street price about $90.  A Mac-to-LJ cable is included.

JLE works by creating a bitmap image of the page to be printed,
then dumping that into the printer.  The trouble with this is that
a full page at 300dpi is about 1 Megabyte of data, which takes a
while to shove over a serial line.  (You definitely want to be
running the printer at its maximum 19200bps, not at 9600 which is
all that some PCs can manage --- this may be a problem if you
intend to switch the printer between PC and Mac.)  GDT has put a
lot of work into doing this as fast as possible; typical print
times are two to four minutes per page, less if the page is only
partly covered. If you are in a hurry you can work at 150 or even
75 dpi, which reduces the data volume and print time by a factor of
4 or 16, with a loss in print quality.  (By now they may have an LJ
III-specific driver that understands the III's graphic data
compression options; that would speed things up too.)

Aside from the speed problem, you need enough memory in the printer
to hold the bitmap image (LJs have to store the entire page until
it's printed, unlike some other printers such as DeskJets).  This
is not too much of a problem with the newer LJs, which come with
1Mb of memory standard.  It is a problem with LJ Pluses, which have
only 1/2 Mb and are not readily upgradable; but it turns out that
JLE is pretty smart about not dumping white space, and this saves
printer memory as well as time.  I found that most 300dpi letter
size pages would print on a Plus, although some rearrangement of
the page was sometimes necessary to put the white space where JLE
could take advantage of it.  For densely printed or legal-size
pages you may be forced to back off to 150dpi to avoid LJ Plus
memory overflow.  An original LJ has even less memory and is
probably close to unusable with JLE.

Text is imaged from Macintosh screen fonts, which means you get the
jaggies unless you have large font sizes installed (you need 4x the
screen size for best results at 300dpi).  GDT has alleviated this
problem by implementing scalable fonts inside their driver.  JLE
comes with scalable Times, Helvetica, Courier, and Symbol lookalike
fonts, and you can buy more (basically the LaserWriter Plus font
set) for $200.  HOWEVER, there are bugs in their font handling.  I
found quite a lot of cases where what you saw on the screen was not
what you got printed out, at least with the applications I was
using (principally ReadySetGo).  For example, "condensed" or
"extended" text would be properly spaced only if it wasn't also
bold or italic.

I would recommend ignoring GDT's scalable fonts, and instead
investing in Adobe Type Manager and PostScript fonts.  This is
slower than GDT's code, but has fewer bugs and gives you access to
a vastly larger font library.

You can squeeze out some additional speed by buying a
serial-to-parallel converter box (about $90 from GDT).  This is a
win because LJs can accept graphics data through their parallel
ports faster than through their serial ports.  JLE can drive the
Mac's serial port at speeds above 19200bps when it is mated to the
converter.  GDT claims this setup is 25% to 50% faster; I have not
tried it.  (Using parallel rather than serial can also simplify
sharing the printer with a PC; just add a parallel A/B switch box.
HP recommends against mechanical switch boxes, but electronic ones
are safe.) I have not found any print spoolers that work with JLE.
(SuperLaserSpool's latest version is claimed to, by GDT, but does
NOT work reliably in my experience.)  There are some application
compatibility problems, but most seem related to GDT's scalable
fonts, and would probably go away if you used ATM instead.

My really big gripe is that GDT does not fix reported bugs, even
when you tell them exactly what the problem is and where (I spent
some time disassembling their driver for my own amusement).  After
waiting 6 months and paying for an upgrade I would sure as hell
expect to get a fix...

GDT has recently released version 2.0 of JLE; this version may or
may not improve the bug/compatibility situation.
<end excerpt>

..

PostScript:

..
A. Freedom of Press Lite : FoP is a PostScript emulator; it
redirects the LaserWriter driver to generate a PostScript file,
which is written to disk, and is interpreted by the Mac to create
a raster which is then downloaded to the printer.

In addition to downloading a TIFF image through a serial line, FoP
incorporates time it takes to use the Mac to interpret PostScript
code - the result : the thing is slower than a clogged toilet. In
the time I tried it, I frequently had to leave the thing to print
overnight. It came with no cables; and did not provide sources for
cables.

Since FoP intercepts PostScript output from the LaserWriter driver
to interpret it, spooling actually means that under MultiFinder
there will be two applications running in the background:
PrintMonitor and FoP. This results in a tremendous performance hit
even with fairly large areas of memory. Since TIFF files are
initially written to disk, FoP requires tons of memory, for
volatile and disk; with FoP and System 7 running, you'd need at
least 10 Mb of RAM, and another 5-10 Mb on disk free to function
passably (personally, I don't know how this will affect disk
fragmentation).

FoP Lite comes with 17 of the LaserWriter fonts, but I found them
to be of very poor quality. Recommendation: if there is sufficient
disk space, use in the few times with a PostScript graphic output
is desired. Otherwise, it is more prudent to upgrade to a hardware
based PostScript upgrade.

Freedom of Press Lite is made by Custom Applications, 800-873-4367,
latest version is 3.03.

Mac's Place May 1992 price is $88.

..
B. TScript

TScript is the major competitor to FoP as a software based
PostScript interpreter, and is in many ways similar. I do not have
direct experience with using it; I rely on information sent to me
by the manufacturers.

Like FoP, TScript comes in several incremental "models" : Basic,
which is the vanilla module capable of interpreting and printing
PostScript output, as well as editing and previewing it. The next
step up, TScript v. 3.0, provides the ability to convert PostScript
into TIFF files, and the Deluxe features conversion to 2000 dpi
TIFF files, and multiple PostScript page preview.

The literature seems to indicate that no hardware comes with the
software to connect the computer and the printer; TeleTypesetting
also offers parallel connectors T-Link and T-Card. With an
installed parallel interface card, output is claimed to be on par
with a LaserWriter when printed through a Macintosh II with a math
coprocessor. Optimal conditions is said to be at least 5 Mb of RAM.
At least a Mb is required on the LaserJet side.

Impressions: The hardware requirements for interpreting PostScript
in software is generally large, to the extent that it may be more
feasible to get the hardware upgrade. TScript's high end PostScript
manipulation capabilities, however, point to its uses beyond simply
acting as a LaserJet driver for the Macintosh. In the interest of
economy, TScript may not be the most comfortable choice to make,
but may the cheapest way to access and print PostScript. Even with
a PostScript printer, one does not have the same advantage with
PostScript previewing.

TScript Basic, TScript, and TScript Deluxe are made by
TeleTypeSetting, 474 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215.
phone [phone]. fax [phone]. Suggested retail prices are
$85, $145 and $495 respectively. There is a 35% academic discount
on quantities of three. Available from most dealers and mail order
companies.

..
C. and D. Hewlett-Packard and Adobe's PostScript cartridges for
LaserJets

All PostScript interpreters require at least 2 Mb of RAM on the
printer side; the original 512K will not be sufficient.
Furthermore, the series I printers: the original LaserJet, the Plus
and the Plus 500, cannot be upgraded. For those, PostScript
solutions are stuck as software. For the series II and above,
though, there are a variety of hardware upgrades in the form of
PostScript cartidges and emulator cartridges. As I do not have
direct experience with the HP and Adobe products, I shall include
excerpts from Tom Lane's 1990 article. Again, note that prices and
details may not be accurate.

<begin excerpt>

HP'S POSTSCRIPT CARTRIDGE:

HP Part Number 33439P, lists at $695; street price about $550.
This contains a genuine Adobe PostScript interpreter, version 52.2.

The cartridge works in LJ IId, IIp, and all Series III models, but
*not* in the original Series II LJ.  (See the Adobe cartridge if
you have a II.)

You'll also need extra printer memory, as noted above.  2Mb extra
is recommended (4Mb extra for a IId or IIId; double-sided printing
does not work with less).  You might need even more memory if you
use *lots* of downloaded PostScript fonts.  (I've had no trouble
printing font sample documents with a dozen or more downloaded
fonts, so I think that 2Mb will satisfy all normal needs.)

If you want to connect the printer using AppleTalk protocol, you'll
need an AppleTalk Interface Kit, HP part # 33416A; list price is
$275, street price about $220.  (I bought one of the first ones off
the assembly line; street price may have fallen by now.  The same
may be true of the PS cart itself.)

If you need to save some money, you can use a slower RS232
connection: instead of the AT interface kit, buy APDA's item M7601
"Asynchronous LaserWriter Driver" for $20.  (There's also a one
time membership charge to join APDA.  If anyone knows the current
fee and how to join, please let me know for inclusion here.)  The
APDA driver doesn't know anything about printer features that
aren't in Apple LaserWriters, such as the double sided printing
capability of the IId and IIId; otherwise it should work OK. NOTE:
this driver calls itself v4.0, but apparently it is based on v6.0
of the standard driver; so it's not as out of date as you might
think from the number.

Finally, you need to buy a cable.  If you go the AppleTalk route,
you can buy AppleTalk cabling (expensive, but necessary if you want
to network the printer to more than one Mac); or if you have just
one Mac, you can buy a plain "null modem" cable.  (Your Apple
dealer will sell you one if you ask for an ImageWriter II cable;
they're about $10.)  NOTE: for safety with the cheaper cable, you
should be sure the Mac and printer are both plugged into the same
power outlet.  The main reason AppleTalk is so expensive is that
there are isolation transformers in the cabling.  You don't need
these if you have only one Mac and one printer and they are on the
same power circuit. [I don't know what kind of cable is required to
hook up an RS232 connection; probably this info is in the APDA
driver documentation, but details would be appreciated.  HP does
*not* provide any cable with the printer.]

If you buy the AppleTalk card, you also get a customized version of
the Apple LaserWriter printer driver; however, you can use the
regular Apple driver if you want to.  The customized driver is
mainly useful for getting at specialized features, such as
double-sided printing on the IId or changing resolution enhancement
settings on a III.  With a IIp you might as well use the Apple
driver.  (I've found some applications that work OK with the Apple
driver but not with the HP driver: DesignStudio 1.0, Multiplan 1.0,
MS Word 3.0.  SuperLaserSpool seems to have problems with the HP
driver too.)

This combo gives you the functional equivalent of a LaserWriter
IINT, although benchmarks recently reported in MacUser (Oct. 90
issue) make it look a bit slower than a IINT on complex graphics
(straight text printing is as fast or faster than the IINT).  I
detect considerable anti-HP bias in the text of the MacUser review
[in particular, their statements about LJ III print quality are way
out of line with my experience], but I don't think they fudged the
timing numbers.

The HP PS cartridge is a solid, user-friendly implementation.  For
example, you can enable or disable the power-up test page from the
front panel, instead of having to send an arcane bit of PostScript.
Since the PS interpreter is by Adobe, it should have no deviations
from the de facto PS standard.

One shortcoming of the HP cart is that to switch between PostScript
and native HP mode, you have to power down the printer and insert
or remove the PS cart.  This is very easy, but since you have to
wait through the power-up selftest, the elapsed time to swap is a
couple of minutes.  This is not a big problem unless you want to
share the printer with a PC on a daily basis. Also note that any
HP-type fonts built into the printer are totally ignored by the PS
cartridge; conversely, you can't use PS fonts in HP mode.


ADOBE'S POSTSCRIPT CARTRIDGE:

Adobe offers a PostScript cartridge for the original (now
discontinued) Series II LJ.  This cart does *not* work in the IId,
IIp, or Series III models.  (Adobe and HP evidently have an
agreement not to tread on each other's toes here, as the HP
cartridge works in exactly the printers Adobe's doesn't.)

I believe street price for this cartridge is about $300.  It comes
with a bunch of info and programs for use with IBM PCs, but with
*nothing* for Macs.  Hence you need to buy the APDA
serial-LaserWriter printer driver and a cable; see above for more
info about this driver.  (As far as I know, you cannot use the HP
AppleTalk interface with this cartridge.)  You must also buy at
least 1.5Mb add-on memory; see above for purchase recommendations.

At least one person has reported that he was unable to make this
configuration work with a IIcx; I never heard if he resolved the
problem. It seems pretty clear that Adobe is marketing this
cartridge primarily to the PC universe, and that they have not put
together a plug-and-play solution for the Mac.  Once they have
finished writing their own PostScript printer driver (a project
announced to the net some months ago), they may package it with
this cartridge and provide a tidier solution.
 This cart allows programmable switching between PS and HP modes,
unlike HP's cart.  Like the PDP cart (below), the switch entails a
powerup self test cycle, so it is pretty slow and any characters
sent meanwhile will be lost. Further reports from users would be
appreciated.

<end excerpt>

E. PacificPage, PacificTalk and PacificConnect

For a description of PacificConnect, see the QuickDraw section.

PacificPage is PDP's PostScript emulation cartridge, and comes in
two flavors: PacificPageII for the LaserJet II, and PacificPagePE
for the IId and above. The main advantage to choosing these
cartridges is price. In the case ofthe LaserJet II, this is the
only alternative to choosing and fiddling with Adobe's cartridge.
The cartridge comes with the standard 35 Apple LaserWriter fonts,
and, in the case of the PacificPageII, a 2 Mb memory expansion
board. To connect the Mac to the LaserJet, either the
PacificConnect board (see above) or a PacificTalk (AppleTalk clone)
interface can be used.

One of the more exciting upgrades available is the XL board to be
used in conjunction with the PacificPage cartridge. Formerly only
available for the PE, it is now also available for the II, and is
a RISC based accelerator reportedly supercharges the LaserJets for
a minimal price (Byte reported the PE/XL combination as listing for
$999, and named it honorable mention as one of the best products of
the year). The XL board comes with its own onboard memory, and fits
into the optional memory slot of the LaserJet II. I was scheduled
to be a beta tester for the II/XL board, but beta testing was
cancelled. Nonetheless, PDP just began shipping it, and I will be
receiving one soon, whereupon I can formulate a better review.

PacificConnect, PacificTalk, PacificPage (PE, II, XL) are made by
Pacific Data Products, 619-552-0880.

..
F. BridgePort

BridgePort is the general name used by a large selection of
printer-sharing products made by Extended Systems. The list is long
and varied, with solutions for a large number of possible computer
combinations. I presented ES technical support with the scenario of
using a LaserJet II with a Macintosh, and the answer is the
BridgePort model ESI-2679B, and they were kind enough to send me a
user manual, literature answering my questions and describing most
of the BridgePort line.

The ESI-2679B is basically an externally powered smart port. It
connects to a PostScript printer via either a parallel or a serial
connection (with Macs, a serial connection is recommended), and
recieves data through its serial, parallel and AppleTalk ports. A
PostScript printer is absolutely necessary; the LaserJet II can be
configured with either the Adobe or the PacificPage cartridges. The
BridgePort offers intelligent communication; it is unnecessary to
worry about hardware specific software. Standard system printer
drivers (the LaserWriter driver) can be used. The switching is
transparent, and the box is designed to be forgotten. I have
received testimony to the ease of use of the BridgePort product.
There are some quirks with maintenance since the BridgePort box is
independent of the LaserJet's power supply, but none of it should
be of much concern. If PostScript is already installed on the
LaserJet, the BridgePort is the most feasible way to get a
Macintosh working with the least amount of hassle. Plus a mixed
environment can still be maintained. The product is also well
documented, complete with pinout and power diagrams.

The BridgePort ESI-2679 is made by Extended Systems, 6123 N. Meeker
Ave., Boise, Idaho 83704. phone [phone], fax [phone].
List price $495, with a 40% academic discount for a limited time.
Extended Systems also makes a wide variety of printer accesories
and products which may be of interest to people managing mixed
environments, as well as large printer-sharing networks.

<end specific products>

On the side...

I received the following from Sascha Segan:

From: Sascha Segan <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Printing to a LaserJet II/Pacific Page with a mac
To: Richard Sucgang <[e-mail]>
In-Reply-To:  Your message of Tue, 5 May 92 21:04:36 EDT

The JetWriter is a combination effort between Extended and Insight
- a hybrid hardware/software product. It essentially uses a
serial/parallel converter and a modified version of the MacPrint
drivers for optimal performance.
The two components of the JW are a board and software (the system
is *only* usable with the LJ IIP.) The board snaps in place of the
IIP's standard I/O plate ina five-minute, no-fuss procedure,
replacing the parallel and serial ports with an Appletalk port. The
software is, for all intents and purposes, MacPrint; it
works identically, and identically well. The only program I have
found that will absolutely not print with the JW is Quark XPress
3.0. Speed varies wildly. I'm running a 2.5MB Mac SE; remember
that. Under System 6.07 with Finder, things print swiftly and in
magnificently high quality; you essentially have a Personal LW SC.
Under MultiFinder or System 7, however, performance degrades. Under
MF, I essentially get one page/minute or so. Under System 7, the
product is utterly unusable. The hardware requirements are simply
that the IIP have 1.5 MB of RAM. While an Appletalk printer, the JW
cannot work on a network; it is a single-machine printer.

I bought the JW board and software a year ago at Computer Factory
here in Manhattan for $293. Prices may have changed.
----Sascha
------------------------------------------------------------

Here are my personal choices:

1. QuickDraw driver : MacPrint
2. Cheapest way to share a LaserJet : PacificConnect
3. Best PostScript solution : PacificPage XL
4. Best way to share PostScript : BridgePort

Without PostScript, the pickings are pretty meager, and with the
prices of PostScript Level 2 printers coming down, my original
recommendation was to sell the LaserJet II, and use the money to
purchase something like the NEC SilentWriter. After reviewing the
choices here, however, that recommendation may not be absolute.
Under certain conditions (such as a single Mac Plus and a LaserJet)
replacing the LaserJet may be the best route, but in other
conditions, particularly in mixed environment, the trusty LJII may
still have miles to go before it sleeps.

Many thanks to everyone who sent in their suggestions and comments.
This Up-Rev, v1.1 was written by Richard Sucgang, May 28, 1992.
Primary archival sites are sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6), and
all sites that subscribe to the macgifts program. Please forward
all comments and questions to the following:

E-mail :  [e-mail];
          [e-mail].

voice: [phone]

SnailMail: Dept. of Anatomy and Cell Biology,
Columbia University in the City of New York
630 W 168th St., New York, NY 10032, USA