Q: Printer Setup

In the Chooser, you should see the laserWriter 8 driver in the left pane. When you select the LaserWriter 8 driver, LaserWriters visible on your network should appear by name in the right pane.

If you are not seeing any, AppleTalk may have wandered off to a different port. Try setting AppleTalk OFF in the Chooser, then open the AppleTalk Control panel directly and select the correct port. be sure to close the window and save changes for the changes to take effect. Then back to the Chooser and check again.

You can tell whether the printer has been set up by looking for the Icon next to its name in the right pane. If you are using desktop printers, you will see an Icon appear on, you guessed it, The Desktop.

If there is a problem with a Desktop Printer, throw away its Icon and set it up again.

Desktop Printers are usually created with the Desktop printer Utility. There is no requirement to create a Desktop Printer unless you prefer to have one, or you want to use Virtual Printers, Printers shared on a Print Queue on a Server, Sahred USB Printers, or a Printer that is only supported by a Desktop Printer driver. If you do not use desktop Printer Utility, you usually do not get desktop printer icons.

To correctly set up a Chooser printer, you select its name in the right pane, and use one of the buttons that appears below it in the right pane, something like "set up Automatically" or Set Up Manually".

Once it has been set up properly, which takes a minute or two while it goes out and chats with the printer, the icon should appear next to tis name in the right pane and it should be selectable and will accept print jobs.

"Apple Printer Utility" (not to be confused with "Desktop Printer Utility" can be used to change the name of most Apple printers. This can help you maintain your sanity when you have more than one of the same type.

One common problem is the failure of Localtalk cabling, usually due to termination issues. In that case, the printer's name may be visible, but it cannot be printed to and sometimes cannot be set up. Bear with me as I go through the "Laundry list" of Localtalk problems.

You can either use Apple Locking connectors or PhoneNet with telephone cords. Apple connectors are limited to 8 stations, but self-terminate. PhoneNet is limited to thousands of feet of twisted-pair wire, dozens of telephone lead-in cords, and 32 stations, BUT: with this flexibility comes the requirement to terminate the unused phone jack on the last Phonenet box.

Farallon provides a phone-plug-mounted 120 Ohm resistor for this purpose, but these are small and easy to lose. There is another way to do this with parts from an electronics store -- write back if you need to do this and I can describe it. The important rule to remember is that generally, no phone jacks can be left empty, or your data will spill out onto the floor. No dangling unconnected phone cords, either. And all phone cords MUST have all four contacts and all four wires, because PoneNet uses the outside, normally unused wire so as not to interfere with your regular telephones.

Your computer will not have a phone jack.

Start at the LaserWriter 4/600. Out of the back on the right side comes a short, slender eight-wire plug. Most people have a PhoneNet (or brand X) small square transformer providing that short Localtalk connection. THAT is what has the two phone jacks. One will have a telephone lead-in cord in it, and head back toward the computer, where there will be another little transformer box yjay plugs into the Printer port.

The other phone cord will go on the the other LaserWriter 4/600. At the end of the line, the last phone jack on the last Phonenet transformer must have a phone-plug-mounted terminator. Also, at the computer-end, the last phone jack on the last Phonenet connector must have a phone-plug-mounted terminator.

OK. You are using a Printer cable, not PhoneNet boxes. Bear with me.

Are you absolutely positive that your second printer is a LaserWriter 4/600 PS, and not a Personal Laserwriter 300 (which uses the exact same case and shares many components) ?

Can you talk to the second LaserWriter using Apple Printer Utility, and read out its name, pages printed, etc. ?

It may be a problem if the printer's name has certain non-printable characters in it. Or if you are using Multiple Users feature.

Unless you have a need for Desktop Printers, my temptation would be to turn them off using Extensions Manager Control Panel to disable Desktop Printer Extension. Desktop Printer Spooler, and Desktop PrintMonitor.

Then you can use the "old fashioned" way of selecting your Printer in the Chooser, getting the "Set-Up" button instead of the "Create" button, and having it place an Icon next to its name in the Chooser list. Spooled files will go into a folder in the System Folder.