Laserwriter 8 Driver for OSX... is there one?!?

[Clermont1]

Is there a Laserwriter 8 Driver for OSX? I would love to find one for my old workhorse of 10+ years. It is still the driving machine in my office of 7.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
- nelson wells

PS I suppose if I must buy a new laser printer... any suggestions there?

 

[pncc]

What printer do you have?

ANY printer that used the Laserwriter 8 driver under 9 will work under X. I am talking about Laserwriter 8, NOT Laserwriter Select 310 or any other Select series. The Laserwriter 8 driver means the printer is a Postscript printer. All a Postscript printer needs to be understood under OS X is its PPD file.

The key is installing the PPD file. Find the one for your printer (ex. TKP780G1.PPD for a Tektronix 780G printer) and put it here:

/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/TKP780G1.PPD

Then open Printer Setup Utility (in Panther), click Add, select the network connection type (AppleTalk or IP), select the printer, follow the menus, find the PPD file you installed and click OK.

IP is STRONGLY favored over AppleTalk. If you can set an IP address for your printer, do it.

 

[Clermont1]

Laserwriter 8 for OSX?

OK, I think I am following you, only all I can find in the way of a PPD ? for a Laserwriter 2 is: use res edit to create a ppd starting with " *PPD-Adobe: "4.1" " and end with one of 20 different numbers such as (-8179).... ?

And even if I knew how to do that, could someone tell me where the printer set up utility is on OS 10.2.8?

I would LOVE to know. 10+ years on Mac and I can't find a thing any more.

I really appreciate your help; is there a way of downloading something that will do this for me. Not one of us 8 in the office can figure out how to get the laserwriter operating from osx.
?? thank you. for whatever you can provide..

lost in athens..

 

[Sun Baked]

Mac HD/Applications/Utilities/Print Center (or Print Setup Utility)

Then do an Add Printer, and you'll be able to select the driver if you so wish (LW IIf/IIg drivers are there)

 

[Clermont1]

PPD file for Laserwriter II ?

OK, somehow I was able to set a desktop printer to my laserwriter however, that was in classic.

Now, I have also gotten to the "Add printer" window by just hitting print in an app, but the error keeps saying "unable to find matching printer file" even though I am looking at it find the printer which is called "peppermint machine".

why would that come up and not allow me to use it?

oh, also, I added what looked to be the PPD file called: Apple-LaserWriter_IINTX-Postscript.ppd
(the only one I could find) which obviously did not do the trick. (it's in the folder /library/printers/ppds.

anything else I need to try?
thanks again.

 

[Sun Baked]

5 Mac OS X Laserwriter Postscript 1 Printers

 

[MisterMe]

Re: PPD file for Laserwriter II ?

Originally posted by Clermont1
OK, somehow I was able to set a desktop printer to my laserwriter however, that was in classic.

Now, I have also gotten to the "Add printer" window by just hitting print in an app, but the error keeps saying "unable to find matching printer file" even though I am looking at it find the printer which is called "peppermint machine".

why would that come up and not allow me to use it?

oh, also, I added what looked to be the PPD file called: Apple-LaserWriter_IINTX-Postscript.ppd
(the only one I could find) which obviously did not do the trick. (it's in the folder /library/printers/ppds.

anything else I need to try?
thanks again.

PPD files are not drivers. They are plain text files that tell your PostScript driver which specific features are available on your printer. PPD files are cross-platform. I dug my PPD file from a install archive for Windows. The same PPD file that works with Classic or Windows also works with MacOS X 10.x so long as your printer's PostScript is PostScript Level 2 or higher. Your PPD file does not have to be in /library/printers/ppds. You can, however, move a copy of it there. If you don't, Print Center or Printer Setup Utility will create a copy of your PPD in the standard location. And if you don't have the correct PPD file, then don't sweat it. Chose a generic file. Remember that MacOS X did not use PPD files until MacOS X 10.1.