Print to a QuickDraw Printer in OSX

[beachycove]

This tutorial, which came to mind after a recent post, takes an elegant approach to using an old QuickDraw printer with an OSX machine. Gives a usef to an old Mac, too.

I am wondering about hooking up and using my HP870cxi in this way, as (unlike the Canon Pixma to which the youngsters print their colour schoolwork), its cartridges can easily be refilled.

 

[register]

Another way to share a QuickDraw printer is to use the software TScript. It shows up as a PostScript capable AppleTalk network printer in the Chooser programme but will drive the locally attached QuickDraw printer, using the original QuickDraw driver. As long as the OSX version supports AppleTalk you can print to the QuickDraw printer using the old Macintosh as a print server, including a professional PostScript interpreter.

Note: 10 years ago it still was common to have difficulties printing vector graphics, rotated or custom spaced text and other nice things to non-PostScript printers. The price for a network accessible PostScript printer was in a range of some grands and a software PostScript interpreter/raster image processing software came for some hundred dollars, providing proof printing capabilities to a comparatively cheap printer.