Laserwriter Pro 600 or laserwriter 300 personal

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Level 2

470 points

Laserwriter Pro 600 or laserwriter 300 personal

I have a friend who just bought an intel iMac.
she has 2 old printers, one is a Personal Laserwriter 300 the other is a
Laserwriter Pro 600. she has lots of ink for the Pro.
she also has an Asante'Talk adapter (is this called an ethernet bridge???)
not sure , you plug the serial in one side then the ethernet cable comes out the other side.
I plugged it in but then did not know where to go from there!!!
Can anyone tell me if either of these will work or if I am barking up the wrong tree.
?
thanks laura

Flat Panel iMac, G4, 1 GHz, Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on May 23, 2006 1:56 PM

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Answer 1

May 23, 2006 5:52 PM in response to Laura Drew1

Ask your friend for more help with which printer was plugged in with the adapter.

The Personal Laserwriter 300 is a serial-only QuickDraw printer. It is not supported directly by Mac OS X, even if you solve the cabling problems. there are third party drivers that can support it in a generic way.

The LaserWriter Pro 600 is a Postscript level 2 printer, directly supported by Mac OS X LaserWriter driver. It has an Appletalk/LocalTalk Interface.

The Asanté AsantéTalk is a converter or Bridge from AppleTalk-over-Ethernet to AppleTalk/Localtalk. It could work with the 600. But it is cranky about re-acquiring devices that have dropped out for any reason.

Be sure AppleTalk is turned on in your Mac, in the Preferences > Network > Built-In (or other) Ethernet Pane, center button is AppleTalk.

Make sure the Printer and everything is on and ready, then cycle off the power to the AsantéTalk and count to ten. Turn it back on and open the Preferences >Print & Fax > Set Up Printers > and choose AppleTalk as the method. You have no zones. Your printer should appear.

Do you have all the cables, ending with a Mini DIN-8 (round) plug for the printer?

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Answer 2

Laura Drew1 Author

Level 2

470 points

May 23, 2006 6:11 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Well, she would like to use the 300 as its so much smaller but I know she has 3 boxes of toner for the big 600 so I will probably try the Pro first.
Would the 300 work on an XP machine (?!)
I have the power cables and the serial cables for each printer.
the Asante thing has a power cord and an ethernet cable.
I will try the 600 with your suggestions sometime tomorrow and let you know how it goes.
Both printers work, its a shame as really you can't sell them for anything!
If you have more info on the 300 I would be interested in how that could be done.
thanks alot, Laura

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Answer 3

May 23, 2006 6:28 PM in response to Laura Drew1

The Personal 300 is a QuickDraw printer. Mac OS 7, 8, or 9 is the only thing that supported it.

9507- QuickDraw-Based Printers: Not Compatible With DOS or Windows-based PC

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Answer 4

May 23, 2006 6:32 PM in response to Laura Drew1

>"the Asante thing has a power cord and an ethernet cable.

Look at the connector that is not the 8-pin RJ-45 for the Ethernet cable. It will either be a Mini-Din8 for a Printer cable, or a 4-pin phone jack for a phone cord and a PhoneNet box.

If you run into trouble, post back here again and someone will be glad to give you a hand.

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Answer 5

Laura Drew1 Author

Level 2

470 points

May 23, 2006 7:15 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I will check it out and get back to you tomorrow.

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Answer 6

Laura Drew1 Author

Level 2

470 points

May 24, 2006 10:09 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

ok, the Pro 600 I got to work, I just had no idea what I was doing

In reality she would like to use the 300.
Any info on that one!
thanks! Laura
the pins on both are the serial ones with 8 pins (round)

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Answer 7

May 24, 2006 3:08 PM in response to Laura Drew1

I posted a link (above) to an article explaining that the Personal LaserWriter 300 does not work with MSDOS and therefore does not work with Windows.

It also is not among the supported printers for Linux Printing with Gimp-Print (changing to GutenPrint).

It was a cost-reduced printer, and they threw out some of the things that made it easy to interface to.

The other printers in that same shape -- the Personal LaserWriter 320 and the LaserWriter 4/600 PS are both supported by Apple.

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Answer 8

Laura Drew1 Author

Level 2

470 points

May 24, 2006 4:12 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

thanks! we will just get rid of the 300.
Laura

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