What would be a good colour printer for a Macintosh IIci?

[tanuki65]

So, I have a nice working Macintosh IIci running System 7.5.4 (yes, I have a copy). I am thinking of getting a colour printer off eBay. However, I also have a Macintosh SE FDHD (dual floppy) which I might like to print from in the future (running 6.0.8/7.0.1, or maybe 7.1/7.1.1 in the future). Any recommendations for a good, light (less than 10kg/20lb) colour printer?

I also have a Canon PIXMA MG6220, and I tried following http://www.vintagemacworld.com/osxprint.html, but even test jobs sent from the Raspberry Pi I did it with didn't print even after ~5 minutes.

If I could get the print server working it would be nice. Any ideas?

 

[Elfen]

I've used a HP deskjet for years on a IIcx/IIci. Now I need a "newer" one as they no longer make the green-cap ink cartridges, only the blue/purple ones. But it served me great for years. And it still works if there were cartridges for it!

Skewing it a bit - for a BW Inkjet Printer - nothing bets a Stylewriter II. They use the Canon BJ-01 cartridges.

 

[tanuki65]

StyleWriter II eh?

I kind of want the colour for printing pictures though. Would a Colour StyleWriter 2500 be good? It seems that there are a number on eBay.

Edit: There are plenty of StyleWriter IIs as well.

 

[tanuki65]

It could also be greyscale.

 

[tanuki65]

Any advice as to where to find a StyleWriter II working & tested on eBay? Or should I risk an "Untested, power light comes on" StyleWriter II?

 

[NJRoadfan]

Find a Postscript compatible color laser with a print server that supports Appletalk. On the Mac, install Adobe's generic postscript driver and use the PPD that come's with the printer's driver packs. HP also made a "business inkjet" line that had the above built in, but they weren't the most reliable machines.

Elfen, which HP printer/cartridges are you referring to? The older 25A and 26A cartridges that the 550c and 560c used are still available.

https://www.tonercartridgedepot.com/hp-51625a.htm

 

[Charlieman]

Find a Postscript compatible color laser with a print server that supports Appletalk. On the Mac, install Adobe's generic postscript driver and use the PPD that come's with the printer's driver packs. HP also made a "business inkjet" line that had the above built in, but they weren't the most reliable machines.

Older colour laser printers are inadequate for photo printing -- capable enough for charts, line drawings, paint art etc. Modern printers (last six years, possibly older) can reproduce photos but may be expensive.

The reason I assembled the instructions at http://www.vintagema...m/osxprint.html was that I needed to print photos from older Macs using a cheap printer. Owing to the rapid development of Mac OS X, i decided to leave the instructions as a successful experiment.

tanuki65: If you can print an LPD test page from local host (ie the Mac running the server), I'd look at firewall problems. Check the firewall logs and settings. The LPD port (TCP 515) would need to be open to your old Macs and other test devices.

(edited for clarification)

 

[tanuki65]

No, I can't print a test page from the Raspberry Pi I'm using. Slow/experimental Gutenprint drivers? Also, I don't want to by a modern printer because I don't really want to pay more than US$70-80.

Edit: A black and white printer (with greyscale picture dithering like the StyleWriter II) is OK. Light (<10kg/20lb) is also good.

So far the best suggestion is a StyleWriter II. A new laser printer is too costly and an old one is too heavy.

Black and white and colour are both fine!

 

[Charlieman]

No, I can't print a test page from the Raspberry Pi I'm using.

Try printing from local host (127.0.0.1). I don't think that you have followed the argument.

 

[tanuki65]

Huh? I clicked "print a test job" in the CUPS WebUI. What exactly do you want me to do?

P.S. The print server has been unplugged as it interfered with printing from my retina 15" MacBook Pro.

 

[NJRoadfan]

I have done the "create a postscript printer with ghostscript" thing before, but with Windows. Something tells me it works better with classic macs in combination with netatalk 2.2.4. That way the printer will appear in Chooser.

http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/2.2/htmldocs/configuration.html#printing

 

[Elfen]

No, I can't print a test page from the Raspberry Pi I'm using. Slow/experimental Gutenprint drivers? Also, I don't want to by a modern printer because I don't really want to pay more than US$70-80.

Edit: A black and white printer (with greyscale picture dithering like the StyleWriter II) is OK. Light (<10kg/20lb) is also good.

So far the best suggestion is a StyleWriter II. A new laser printer is too costly and an old one is too heavy.

Black and white and colour are both fine!

For B/W & GreyScale, the StyleWriter II would be good.

Check up on this, but I believe HP Printer Support on Mac goes to Pre-OSX system. Just go through the HP Printer Drivers to check. Check the other manufacturers as well.

Here in the NYC/USA area I seen Printers for under $70 BUT the starter cartridge is only enough for less then 100 printed pages and a new cartridge for the printer costs more than the damn printer itself! So they get you either way! I seen a Canon and an Epson all in ones at K-Mart go for under $80, but their cartridges going for a lot more!

Emulating a Mac with an R-Pi? I would like to do that one day. But I do know that you lose a few things when emulating a system, like direct printing. You can still print, but it takes some work.

- One way is to have the printer shared on a real mac and then have the emulated Mac connect to the printer through the other Mac through the network. But sometimes I hear, networking is lost on emulation.

- Another way is have a .pdf file creator and create a .pdf of the document and then take the file to the other Mac to be printed. But then again, you can do the same with saving the file and swapping it to the other Mac.

 

[trag]

Find a Postscript compatible color laser with a print server that supports Appletalk.

Second this advice.  A color laser's output won't be quite as photo-perfect as the best of the inkjets, but it's better than so-called photo-quality ink jets of a few years ago.   Also, there are no liquids to dry and clog print heads (no print heads).

It's tricky shopping for one though.   There are a bunch of color laser printers available now which feature "host based" printing.  Which means that the printer doesn't speak a standard printer language.  It relies on the host computer to do the rasterizing calculations, and that means there must be a specific print driver for that printer, for your target OS.  Obviously, you should avoid those.

Expect to pay about $200 - $250 for a good color laser printer with network and postscript support.   The trickiest bit is figuring out whether the Appletalk protocol is supported.  It appears that some printer lines still support it but don't mention it in the specifications.

For example, this printer is a good choice, except that I don't know whether it supports Appletalk.  It may only support TCP/IP printing. 

http://amzn.com/B004MSN4BI

When I was shopping for a color laser (six years ago), I almost bought the earlier Phaser 6180.   I ended up getting a Kyocera EcoPro 170N, which has very similar specifications and was about the same price (~$250 shipped), because the 170N specifically listed AppleTalk in its communications protocol category in its specs.   The sheet I have saved for the 6180 doesn't list communications protocols.  It can be hard to find. 

They'll tell you the hardware media (ethernet, USB, etc.) and they'll tell you the print languages supported (postscript, PCL 5, 6, etc.) but some times they just don't want to mention TCP/IP, SPX/IPX, AppleTalk, etc.)

Look for a line in the specs with TCP/IP on it, and then check for AppleTalk.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Every HP that uses a JetDirect network card supports Appletalk printing. The ones with "built-in" JetDirect are tricky, some do, some don't. The low end models usually omit Appletalk but HP's spec sheets are very clear about this. Personally I just buy laser printers used, but filled with toner cartridges. If you score a "workgroup" class printer, you can go years before having to buy toner. They all tend to go for cheap since laser printers depreciate like cars.

 

[tanuki65]

I'm not emulating a Mac on the RPi, I'm just adapting it to Raspbian. I think I'll try with my Retina MBP. I may try with my 700MHz iBook G3 some day.

edit: I don't want to buy a new printer since they cost >$80. Edit #2: I'll try Netatalk. Edit #3: I DIDN'T USE GHOSTSCRIPT!!

 

[NJRoadfan]

CUPS should use Ghostscript if fed a Postscript file. If properly setup netatalk will handle the actual communication with System 7.x, it will then pass the Mac's output in the form of a Postscript file to CUPS which processes it with Ghostscipt and then outputs to your printer. Its complicated to setup, but it works.... somehow.

 

[tanuki65]

But I didn't install Ghostscript! And I didn't use Netatalk! And Gutenprint support for my printer (Canon PIXMA MG6220) is "EXPERIMENTAL". And I didn't wait very long for the slow RPi! As I said, I'll try again with my rMBP, Netatalk, and Ghostscript this week.

 

[NJRoadfan]

Also all *NIX distributions have Ghostscript installed by default in order to print as many applications output their printouts as Postscript files. Heck, I think CUPS has it as a dependency.

 

[tanuki65]

Hmmm... Would an ImageWriter be good? There's one on eBay, working.