Can I upgrade my Imagewriter II to a newer printer?
I am still using my GS with an Imagewriter II printer. Is there any way to use a newer printer with the GS?
Mac mini (Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)
What is a GS?
5 replies
An Apple GS is an enhanced 1982 Apple II E that offers both graphics and sound. Hence the name GS. I also have a split (20/20) 40 meg (yes I said meg not gig) hard drive.
OK thanks. Mine had only a 20 M HD.
If "newer" implies USB, then no. There's nothing wrong with an ImageWriter though.
It also included a GS/OS ( the "poor man's Mac OS") which had a Mac OS-like UI and supported AppleTalk and the Apple Desktop Bus. (Thank the GS for having that pesky "Open Apple" key on our keyboards for 2 decades that had no relevence to the Mac or Mac OS! Oh how I tried to correct people to say "Command" instead of "[Open] Apple"!)
It didn't last long. I never really seen the GS/OS widly used, really to play //e games or apps in color.
Plugging another printer into the GS will be a bit of an exercise in garage sale-ing. The only kind of printer that will work will be of similar vintage.
If you wanted to run the same software on a modern computer and use whatever printer is connected to that, then you can explore virtualizing your work with an emulator like GSport (http://gsport.sourceforge.net/). It, like other Apple II emulators, can also pass whatever needs to be printed to the printer attached to your modern computer:
Can I upgrade my Imagewriter II to a newer printer?