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| Legacy printers |
Posted by: Redjack on 2009-01-27 12:12:20
I am curious about finding drivers or shareware drivers that can let me use the newer printers (like Canon's Pixma printers) in OS9 or even 8? I haven't used those OS's in awhile, but I have older OS8/9 compatible macs that I'd like to print from to my newer printers. Any help?
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Posted by: II2II on 2009-01-27 12:25:18
I am a huge fan of PostScript printers because they will work on almost any computer you throw at them. At least if they sport the right ports. (Get parallel and ethernet as a minimum, USB is nice, and serial is also nice if you can find it.)
Most vendors have at least one mid range printer that will fit that role.
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Posted by: porter on 2009-01-27 12:36:47
Or if you have a UNIX box with netatalk in your network mix, you can use Ghostscript to turn most printers into Postscript printers, hence any printer can appear as a colour AppleTalk LaserWriter.
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Posted by: Redjack on 2009-01-27 12:48:15
I have a newer printer but I want to use these in OS8/9, sorry for the confusion.
Alternatively, should I just setup some sort of print server? That might be a neat project but before we jump on that, how can I use newer printers on older macs?
PS: my subject line is absolutely misleading! My apologies 🙁
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Posted by: Strimkind on 2009-01-27 12:52:16
To cut to the chase, they have not made drivers for OS9, much less OS8 in years. 8.6 and up support USB but I think epson was the last to make drivers for classic OS. Everything now is X so you will have to use a print server to have any of the older machines print on a new printer.
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Posted by: beachycove on 2009-01-27 13:11:59
www.system7today.com used to have some instructions on this very question. That would have been your best source, except that the link is not presently active: http://main.system7today.com/articles/leopard/index.html . Waybackmachine may be your friend here.
The fix, as I recall, involved use of the generic postscript driver on the OS7.6.1 (or 8 or 9) machine and enabling print sharing on an OSX machine connectd to the usb printer. I am not sure what else, except that it was said to work well, and that presumably printing would have to be IP-based rather than Appletalk-based. I do all my printing over Appletalk so can't help you there.
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Posted by: Charlieman on 2009-01-27 13:53:33
All you need is System 6:
http://www.vintagemacworld.com/osxprint.html
I have not tried to maintain the page over the years owing to how OS X treats AppleTalk and IP. If people are willing to do some testing, I'll refresh it.
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Posted by: Scott Baret on 2009-01-27 13:55:07
Epson made OS 9 drivers for photo printers as late as 2005. I know Canon was making them in 2003 since the i450 has one but I'm not sure when they stopped.
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Posted by: porter on 2009-01-27 14:29:14
All you need is System 6:http://www.vintagemacworld.com/osxprint.html
I have not tried to maintain the page over the years owing to how OS X treats AppleTalk and IP. If people are willing to do some testing, I'll refresh it. I was most impressed with Services for Macintosh on Windows 2000 Server, a single AFP share that can be mounted by System 6, 7, 8, 9 and Tiger.
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Posted by: Dennis Nedry on 2009-01-27 15:19:42
I think there are some generic drivers that work with lots of printers, aren't there? I can't remember anything specific, but I seem to remember using some weird printer with a generic driver many years ago.
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Posted by: porter on 2009-01-27 15:25:46
....with a generic driver many years ago. Daisy? 🙂
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Posted by: Unknown_K on 2009-01-27 15:27:49
You will probably have more luck with laser printers then color inkjets on legacy machines and OS.
Have you looked into finding a legacy printer locally?
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Posted by: II2II on 2009-01-27 15:41:02
Sorry about the confusion, but it really is best to buy a printer with this sort of thing in mind. I don't know what the inkjet world is like, but it isn't uncommon to find new laser printrs that claim to support OS 9 and earlier (oftentimes the specifications will even say so).
But since you have what you have, the only way to get the printer talking to an old computer is to use some sort of network setup to handle it. Ghostscript will do the translation between quite a few protocols, and I believe that CUPS will accept lpd connections (and you can get an lp client for OS 9 and earlier). Which means that you may get away with using OS X as the print server. Note that this is all speculation since it has been a good long time since I looked at the documentation.
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