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A/UX Print Spoolers

beachycove

Well-known member
A series of observations and printing questions for the A/UX cognoscendi:

An Apple Workgroup 95 file/print Server, properly configured, has not one but two print spoolers built in. One is the Appletalk-based spooler included with AppleShare Pro. The other is a unix-based IP/ LPR spooler administered by the archaic LPC command. The latter can, interestingly, utilize any AppleTalk or even serial printer selected in the Chooser, and I gather that the former can be used to network a serial printer also, like an ImageWriter, over Appletalk. If I have understood the matter correctly, A/UX was capable of translating, as necessary, between Quickdraw printing instructions and Postscript, essentially on the fly. This was all part of its bridging of the two networking worlds that A/UX represented at the time it was produced. Pretty spiffy.

Assuming that both spoolers can be active at the same time (can't see why not), could an A/UX box, then, be set up both as an AppleTalk and LPR print spooler, allowing continued use of an AppleTalk-only printer in the most recent versions of OSX, as well as by older systems on a network? Might its (LPR) print spooler even show up in Bonjour? Could it, conceivably, allow continued use even of a Quickdraw-based LaserWriter, ImageWriter, or StyleWriter?

Please tell me the answer is yes. I need a reason to dust off an A/UX box, fire it up, and put it to good use.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
If I have understood the matter correctly, A/UX was capable of translating, as necessary, between Quickdraw printing instructions and Postscript, essentially on the fly. This was all part of its bridging of the two networking worlds that A/UX represented at the time it was produced. Pretty spiffy.
I'm vaguely curious where you read that. So far as I'm aware the only way A/UX can do any Postscript filtering or translation on the UNIX side is if you install something like Ghostscript and set up it up all manually. And any version of Ghostscript which runs on A/UX is going to be extremely limited in the printers it supports.

I could be wrong but a citation of what you're thinking of would be helpful. My reading of the LPR-related section of the "Server Administration with AUX 3.0.1" manual basically says the only integration that exists between the MacOS side and the Unix print spooler is by default the LPR daemon is configured to automatically change between a Laserwriter-compatible or Imagewriter-compatible spooler configuration and throw data at the printer selected in the chooser. Any custom configuration will override that and leave you with the same LPR-abilities that you'd find on any other period UNIX. (The OS has a special alias for "AppleTalk" that is uses in the printcap definitions that means "throw it at the chooser-printer", and it appears to be the only way the UNIX side of A/UX can use a Localtalk-connected printer *at all*, and it does not appear that the MacOS print driver interacts with the data stream. So if you've wedged drivers for something other than an Imagewriter or Postscript Laserwriter into the Mac side it's not going to have any effect on the job. For *native* UNIX usage a printer connected to the local ports has to be a *serial* printer, not "Localtalk", which rules out Quickdraw-based printers which A/UX won't have drivers for anyway.)

Assuming that both spoolers can be active at the same time (can't see why not), could an A/UX box, then, be set up both as an AppleTalk and LPR print spooler, allowing continued use of an AppleTalk-only printer in the most recent versions of OSX, as well as by older systems on a network? Might its (LPR) print spooler even show up in Bonjour? Could it, conceivably, allow continued use even of a Quickdraw-based LaserWriter, ImageWriter, or StyleWriter?
A/UX's LPR spooler won't show up in Bonjour, since Bonjour and LPR have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Bonjour is Apple's name for "zeroconf", which is implemented as a daemon that generates something akin to DNS records in response to multicast queries about what services and machines are available on the local LAN segment. If you wanted an A/UX machine to show up in Bonjour you'll have to port a daemon like Avahi to it.

Please tell me the answer is yes. I need a reason to dust off an A/UX box, fire it up, and put it to good use.
Assuming you have an Imagewriter or *serial-capable Postscript Laserwriter* then *assuming* A/UX's LPR will accept remote connections and throw them at the chooser-spooler when "act magically" is enabled then, yes, I suppose you can use A/UX for that. If you want to do anything more elaborate than that you'd be better off hooking the printer up to a Linux machine and sharing it with CUPS, Samba, Netatalk, and Avahi. You're SOL with a Quickdraw printer (with the exception of some Stylewriter models, which do have drivers that can be made to work with a custom cable), but you can't use those with A/UX either unless:

A: I'm wrong about the Mac print driver not doing any translation for UNIX print driver when LPR is running in "chooser-passthrough" mode, *and*

B: You can install the drivers for one of those Quickdraw printers on A/UX in the first place, which I seriously doubt. (Ever used one on MacOS 7.0?)

If you've got an A/UX capable machine and one of those Quickdraw printers feel free to experiment.

 

basalgangster

Well-known member
A/UX did supply a wonderful level of support for lpr printers. So much so that it was a very valuable part of many unix labs. It was Enscript. It would take the brain-dead output of programs connecting to lpr printers, and translate it into postscript, and direct it to postscript printers on ethernet or appletalk.

 

Gorgonops

Moderator
Staff member
A/UX did supply a wonderful level of support for lpr printers. So much so that it was a very valuable part of many unix labs. It was Enscript. It would take the brain-dead output of programs connecting to lpr printers, and translate it into postscript, and direct it to postscript printers on ethernet or appletalk.
The LPR section of the manual did mention that, yes. A default part of the Laserwriter queue configuration is using it in a filter to convert text to Postscript automagically.. Of course, these days (since the mid 1990's) there's a GNU version of it so installing an A/UX machine just to get it is a little silly.

 

beachycove

Well-known member
i think it was Enscript that I tried to reference in that reference.

I don't have any serial printers left to try with A/UX (and very little time to fiddle generally these days), but by the sounds of things, I got half of it wrong in the original post anyway. — Which is why I asked in the first place.

When I get some spare time on a rainy day, however, I am going to explore further.

 
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