1st time vintage Mac buyer

[Macflyer]

Wow, I have to say, I'm impressed. This forum is very active and it encourages me to work with a vintage Mac with support not that far away ;D

I do appreciate all advise and I understand that the SE/30 is the one with the best options of all vintage compact Macs.

I'm up to the challenge of working with vintage hardware, even if it is maybe limited in use but again, I didn't say I wanted to listen to Mp3s and do video editing [] ]'>

Could you recommend a good printer to go with either a Plus or a SE/30 and Word or Claris Works?

I would love to get a laser, but which one?

Or is it printerwise a lost case nowadays?

 

[Bunsen]

No, printers are easily obtainable. I would recommend a good-condition Apple Stylewriter in either colour or black and white for an inkjet, as they take readily available and cheap Canon ink cartridges and clones. They connect to the Mac by the mini-DIN serial (printer or modem) port. And the print quality is quite high for an inkjet.

A PC parallel port printer can be used with a serial to parallel cable and a software suite I forget the name of right now. Probably easiest to just get a Stylewriter. Someone here will be able to recommend models. I seem to recall the 2500 has separate ink tanks for each colour and black.

I believe Apple Laserwriters also take Canon or HP toner refills, but I have no direct experience with them. Depending on model, they also connect via serial, and/or ethernet.

 

[Bunsen]

SCSI scanners with Mac drivers are also dirt cheap, and you can get quite high end models for next to nothing.

You can also find SE/30 PDS cards for ethernet and external monitors, which will give you colour video and more screen real estate if and when you need it. Just FYI, the SE/30 and IIsi PDS slots are identical, but no other PDS cards will work.

Search these forums for SE/30 PDS and you'll see what's available.

 

[Macflyer]

If a printer has a LocalTalk interface it could be connected to either Plus or SE/30, right?

Furthermore, it has to support Postscript to be of any use, right?

Then, does it still run through a special System6/7 printer driver or is a generic postscript laser printer driver enough?

Any objections about the Apple branded Laser Writer 4/600 PS?

 

[JDW]

Yes, Localtalk will work on a Plus or SE/30. But Ethernet on an SE/30 will be much faster.

No, you don't need a Postscript printer to print. It's all in what you want to do. You ought to get a Postscript printer, but you don't have to.

The generic LaserWriter 8 driver is good enough for some printers and not good enough for others. Sorry, I don't have a comprehensive list for you. Perhaps someone else does.

If you are pondering a 4/600PS, why not step up to a 16/600PS. I had a 16/600 and I must say it was one of the best lasers I'd ever used. The print quality is better than some of the newest low-cost lasers on the market today. Not in terms of text quality. I'm talking about graphics and half-toning. Text looks good too, but the graphics of the 16/600 are just outstanding. And it's a fast printer too, plus you can connect via Ethernet with the right adapter. I've seen some on EBAY selling for under $100, and toner carts are still sold on the market. I'd buy one for personal use myself if USPS still offered international ocean shipping -- but alas, they chose to stick the knife in x-pats by killing off reasonably priced shipping this past May.

Hope this helps.

 

[MacMan]

The Laser Writer 4/600 PS will do the job just fine with a Plus or pratically any other older Mac for that matter. If you're just going to be printing text and other simple things then it is not necessary to use ethernet, LocalTalk will be fast enough. LocalTalk only really falls down with large print jobs like high-res photos but I somehow doubt whether you would be doing this with a Plus or SE/30!

As mentioned the LaserWriter 8 driver will works with most of the Apple LaserWriters. The drivers are freely available on the internet these days so it is not difficult to obtain them. Many are included in standard Mac system softare installers as well.

 

[nahuelmarisi]

talking about printers: I have a stylewriter I never got to used simply because I don't know where to get ink cartridges for it. Is there anywhere in the UK where they can be obtained at an acceptable price?

 

[Macflyer]

Or would you suggest another brand, like HP for that matter?

Never had a laser one but I know that I had 4 ink printers the last decade not lasting very long and quite expensive on ink, so a good laser is always cheaper, I would say.

If the printer comes with parallel or serial rather than only LocalTalk it also can handel a PC, if there are drivers, right?

So, an Apple Laser Writer with parallel interface could handle my wife's laptop as well, right?

 

[tomlee59]

The Stylewriter is based on a Canon Bubblejet (BJ200, I think). Cartridges, as well as refill kits, are widely available.

I used to use my Stylewriter II quite a bit for correspondence and quick notes because of its "instant on" capability, as well as its wonderful silence. For large documents, a laser printer wins hands down, but for a couple of pages, the Stylewriter does very well. When mated to a Plus with a Zip drive, you've got a quiet wordprocessing station that allows you to start writing (and printing) within seconds of power on. Still beats a lot of modern, faster computers at this task.

 

[LCGuy]

You can use Canon BC-02 ink cartridges on the StyleWriter and StyleWriter II, which IIRC are still available. I still have my SWII...sadly the o-rings on the rollers are buggered, which means that you have to be there to remove the pages manually when printing multi-page documents, but other than that its still a good printer I'm thinking...I have some other Canon parallel printer that i'm going to chuck...i wonder if i can use the o-rings off it... [}] ]'> (if they're any good)

 

[tomlee59]

LCGuy -- I might have replacement O-rings for you (finding them may be something else altogether). PM me with your address, and I'll send them to you if I can locate them in my Pile-O'-Stuff .

 

[Scott Baret]

Yes, the BC-02s are common on eBay and can be had for very little. They fit not only the SW and SWII but also a bunch of BubbleJets including the portable model (I had one for a few years but dumped it because I had no real use for it).

I recommend the LaserWriter 16/600 PS. It's large but it's also fast and produces great quality prints. You can also network it to a newer computer if you've got one nearby--I'm thinking of putting it on my iBook as well as the Plus I use it on.

The ImageWriter II can also be networked and if you're going to be printing multipart documents (i.e. banners) I suggest the use of one. If word processing is your main objective, though, I wouldn't recommend an IW.

As far as what Mac to get...

I use a Plus for word processing and page layout. It works fairly well with 4MB of RAM, System 6, and an 80MB hard drive. It won't win any speed contests but it won't lose them either. On a Plus the drive has to be external. If you find an enclosure, you'd be best replacing the drive with a fast one. I use a Quantum ProDrive LPS on mine, you may be able to swap with someone on this site in our trading post section for one that was pulled from an LC (common in those machines).

The Classic and SE are marginally faster than the Plus. You can get one with an internal hard drive and in some cases, a high density floppy drive (any SE made after August 1, 1989 and all Classics have them).

An SE/30 is tougher to come by for cheap. You may have to pay extra but it's worth it for the speed. Classic IIs aren't quite as fast but they're nice for a little speed increase.

If you want to get a Mac II series or LC series, note that you will need to buy a monitor. I recommend an Apple monitor to match it--the 13" displays are Trinitron technology and the shadow mask 12" RGB fits perfectly on top of an LC. Any II, IIx, IIcx, or IIfx will need a video card, make sure your machine comes with one.

As far as software--there are many choices for word processing. Some on here love Word 5.1, which you can usually find on eBay. It's harder to find MacWrite Pro there but if you find someone selling it, go for it. ClarisWorks 3.0 or earlier is also a good choice for basic word processing--Word and MacWrite Pro are more advanced. This one's usually a cinch to track down on eBay.

Look for MacDraw II as well--you'll soon find you can't live without it. I also recommend looking for Broderbund's Print Shop (tricky to search for on eBay because so many listings are for the new version, you want the original non-deluxe version) and getting Cliff Johnson's puzzle games from his site (3 in Three will keep you occupied for hours).

If the computer doesn't come with a system, Apple makes 6.0.8 and 7.0.1 available on their site; either should work unless you have a Mac that came out after Summer 1992, in which case you'd want 7.5.3.