Unable to connect mac OS Tahoe to old HP printer

HP Support – HP Deskjet 3050 All-in-One Printer – J610a

HP's specifications state that it "Supports 32-bit only Mac OS X v 10.5 or v 10.6: PowerPC G4, G5 or Intel Core processor." And at first, I did not see any Mac drivers for this printer on HP's site. Later, when I clicked on the "Change preferred operating system" link, the HP site listed four ancient versions of Mac OS X: 10.5 (Leopard) through 10.8 (Mountain Lion). (Mountain Lion came out in 2012 and is twelve major versions older than Tahoe.)

I wouldn't expect any of those old drivers to work on a Mac running Tahoe, whether Intel-based or Apple-Silicon-based. You say the Mac wouldn't allow the installation of the drivers, which suggests that it saw that the drivers are Intel-only and possibly also 32-bit only and rejected them on one or both of those grounds.

The printer does not appear to support AirPrint – which would let you print without a driver. HP's specifications say "Mobile Print capability not supported", and the printer is not listed in Apple's database of printers known to be AirPrint-compatible (About AirPrint - Apple Support).

It looks to me like you are going to be in the market for a new printer.

Hi Sissi70

I have a HP PSC 1400 ink jet printer which is still in use, bless it.

I have it connected to my iMac running Mojave so I can print from the Imac.

I have allowed it and another printer to be shared over my LAN (Ethernet cables to router).

My M1 silicon Mac running Sequoia sees this HP printer and I can print to it from the M1.

Hope this helps in getting yours to work.

(I’ll try tomorrow to connect it directly to the M1 and see what happens)

Sissi ~ Instead of the latest drivers, I think HP expects you to use their free HP app.

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When you get a new printer, make sure that it supports AirPrint, so you don’t need to rely on separate drivers to print to it.

What is the name and model of the printer?