Scott Baret
Well-known member
I recently eBayed a pair of Adobe font packages. Both are from the original run, dated mid-1986 (the letters inside even say April 1986). These are in the clamshell plastic cases (think old Disney VHS tapes) with three floppies each. One is a set of printer drivers, one is screen fonts, and one is a "font initializer" plus uninitialized font files. All of the disks are 400K.
I read the manual and can see what has to happen here...apparently the fonts can only be initialized for a single PostScript printer. This looks like a very old, quickly-abandoned copy protection scheme on Adobe's part. (The two newer font disks I have from Adobe don't have this). In fact, the accompanying manual and license state that they can be used with a single PRINTER and can be installed on as many computers as you'd like. (Not a bad thing considering I use two Macs with this LaserWriter).
The initializer can only be run from the master disk, which starts up from the obscure System 3.1.1. (Not pure 3.1, sadly....but I do have another disk somewhere with a copy of THAT rare version). It also looks like once the fonts are initialized, they can't be un-initialized. This leads to several questions; hopefully someone out there has used this software before, either recently or back in 1986!
1. Will I have an uninitialized copy of the font remaining? The big reason I ask this--I have a LaserWriter 4/600 PS hooked up. I like this printer a lot, but it's also a 21 year old printer so it may eventually need some key parts swapped out.
2. Before I even hook things up, will this old program be OK with a much newer printer?
3. Do these unlocked fonts work on newer System versions? I use 6.0.8 on the SE and 7.1 on the LC that get used with this printer.
I guess in a worst case scenario, I could track down an original 1985 LaserWriter. Fun fact....I used to have one. I traded it, along with a IIx, for a boxed 128K. The guy really wanted the LaserWriter and coughed THAT up for it!! The IIx was more or less thrown in because I felt guilty about trading just an old LaserWriter for it!!
I read the manual and can see what has to happen here...apparently the fonts can only be initialized for a single PostScript printer. This looks like a very old, quickly-abandoned copy protection scheme on Adobe's part. (The two newer font disks I have from Adobe don't have this). In fact, the accompanying manual and license state that they can be used with a single PRINTER and can be installed on as many computers as you'd like. (Not a bad thing considering I use two Macs with this LaserWriter).
The initializer can only be run from the master disk, which starts up from the obscure System 3.1.1. (Not pure 3.1, sadly....but I do have another disk somewhere with a copy of THAT rare version). It also looks like once the fonts are initialized, they can't be un-initialized. This leads to several questions; hopefully someone out there has used this software before, either recently or back in 1986!
1. Will I have an uninitialized copy of the font remaining? The big reason I ask this--I have a LaserWriter 4/600 PS hooked up. I like this printer a lot, but it's also a 21 year old printer so it may eventually need some key parts swapped out.
2. Before I even hook things up, will this old program be OK with a much newer printer?
3. Do these unlocked fonts work on newer System versions? I use 6.0.8 on the SE and 7.1 on the LC that get used with this printer.
I guess in a worst case scenario, I could track down an original 1985 LaserWriter. Fun fact....I used to have one. I traded it, along with a IIx, for a boxed 128K. The guy really wanted the LaserWriter and coughed THAT up for it!! The IIx was more or less thrown in because I felt guilty about trading just an old LaserWriter for it!!
