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Color LaserWriter 12/660

Hotdog Zanzibar

Hotdog Zanzibar

6502
I have a certain fondness that a lot of Mac collectors don't have -- I love Apple's printers. I wish they hadn't stopped making them. I have an ImageWriter II, a StyleWriter II and a LaserWriter IINTX. I followed an ad on Craigslist and found a near-mint condition Color LaserWriter 12/660 that's been sitting in a storage closet for the past 3 years. Aside from a layer of dust, there isn't a mark on it. Plugged it in and turned it on, and it made a nice little grinding noise before flashing half a dozen lights at me and refusing to go further. After checking for paper jams and downloading the User Manual PDFs from Apple, I determined that the fuser oil had all but dried up. I used the manual lever to crank the fuser rollers around a few times, getting the last of the oil on them and turned it back on -- smooth sailing. Printed a couple test sheets and determined that all 4 toner cartridges are in good shape. Just needs some fuser oil (already found some on eBay) and a little TLC.

Here's the part I didn't know -- the thing is huge. Very few places to get a good grip and it takes 2 people to move it safely. I managed to get it in my car -- barely. Actually it's still IN the car ... can't get someone to help me unload it until Thursday evening. :)

I think I'm gonna name it "Goliath."

 
I like the old Apple lasers too. I have a 4/600 PS which one of my friends is sending me the hard to find proprietary 4MB expansion for (6mb MAX). The unit is small and a little slow, but the styleing is nice with no power switches to mess with (it goes into low power mode when not in use). And 600DPI with postscript is still usefull. You can pretty much toss that printer anywhere because of the size. My main lab printer is a HP 4SI, that unit is a tank and needs 2 people to move. The 4si has ethernet, localtalk, parallel, and tokenring ports, has postscript and 18+ MB RAM and is fast too.

The 12/660 is one of the best lasers Apple made, but I am not sure how cheap consumables are for it (the 4/600 takes canon tone I think).

New printers are very cheap these days, but they do not seem to be built to last very long.

 
Apple printers have always been the best. I have owned recently (but none currently) a Laser Writer Select 360 with a half dead fuser (test could be peeled off the paper). That one got me through university in that condition, never had to replace the toner and it was free.

More recently I owned a Laser Writer 16/600PS which I also got for free. This was in better shape and printed awsome but the toner was low and eventually I gave it away.

I wish they still made them.

 
Did Apple ever make their OWN printers? In most cases, their printers were just re-branded products by other manufacturers.

 
Apple tended to use somebody elses print enguine but the electronics/controls were all Apples (this is common on the printer and copier industry).

 
Yes indeed, aside from some of the very late model StyleWriters I believe every other printer they branded was made by them.

Laser print engines often came from Canon especially in the early days of the industry, which is why toner carts are cross-compatible. It doesn't mean that LaserWriters were rebranded Canon printers though!

 
The guts of the original ADB mouse were made by Logitech, even the board has the logo on it.

But about Apple printers: yes, there are nice, but finding replacement ink carts or toner carts is not.

 
Yes indeed, aside from some of the very late model StyleWriters I believe every other printer they branded was made by them.
Laser print engines often came from Canon especially in the early days of the industry, which is why toner carts are cross-compatible. It doesn't mean that LaserWriters were rebranded Canon printers though!
Click to expand...
StyleWriters are also based on Canon bubble-jet engines...most of them are, anyway. The StyleWriter...4200 or 4500 I think was actually based on a HP DeskJet, but other than that, they were all based on Canons.

 
Toner for the CLW is actually fairly easy to find so far -- I've found replacement yellow and black carts for as little as $8 on eBay already. Also got some Fuser Oil -- which is good, because I think that would've been one of the hardest things to find. The developer kit might take some tenacious searching, though... good thing I don't need one yet! :)

 
But about Apple printers: yes, there are nice, but finding replacement ink carts or toner carts is not.
Click to expand...
Depends on what printer you have. I have at least 25 NIB Personal LaserWriter toners in the warehouse, but they're for the old Personal LaserWriter LS and those type of series, which were some really crappy printers. (no onboard logic or anything, the Mac did all the work, so no networking, etc.) If you check eBay there is also a glut in these particular toners. I think the PLW LS series printers are pretty much not used anymore. Conversely, anything with an Ethernet port can still be connected to a brand new Leopard Mac and those carts are in demand. If there's HP equivalents, the prices are low, but for the case of the 12/640 PS there are only one or two equivalents, some long forgotten Canon models long ago crushed, so NIB Apple toners for these are expensive.

 
I thought nearly all of Apple's printers were rebranded except maybe the ImageWriter / ImageWriter II. I know StyleWriter II, 1xxx, 2xxx are all Canons. I think my LaserWriter Pro 630 is an HP LaserJet 4.

Let's compile a list of original Apple-developed printers. I bet it will be SHORT.

 
Again, rebranding is different from using another manufacturer's engine. I find it hard to believe that early StyleWriters were rebranded since they look nothing like any other model of printer I've seen. The test page stored in ROM also insinuates that Apple was behind the control software.

 
Again, rebranding is different from using another manufacturer's engine. I find it hard to believe that early StyleWriters were rebranded since they look nothing like any other model of printer I've seen. The test page stored in ROM also insinuates that Apple was behind the control software.
Click to expand...
I do know that the CSW1500 is identical to the Canon BJC-250, except for ROM of course. I know because I used to own a 250.

 
The guts of the original ADB mouse were made by Logitech, even the board has the logo on it.
But about Apple printers: yes, there are nice, but finding replacement ink carts or toner carts is not.
Click to expand...
Same with the Puck mouse.

 
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