hlritter

Q: Using an H-P Deskscan II and Deskjet printer with a Mac

I have 20-year-old H-P Deskscan II scanner and Deskjet printer, both in excellent shape. I'd like to use these with my contemporary Mac as well as with my legacy systems. Does anyone know how to use these with OS X on a contemporary Mac? I think the central issues are the SCSI connectors and the drivers.

 

Thanks,

Howard

Posted on May 12, 2016 8:12 AM

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Q: Using an H-P Deskscan II and Deskjet printer with a Mac

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  • by Kenichi Watanabe,

    Kenichi Watanabe Kenichi Watanabe May 12, 2016 9:02 AM in response to hlritter
    Level 8 (38,139 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 12, 2016 9:02 AM in response to hlritter

    I don't know about the scanner, but there is an open source project for old printer drivers, called Gutenprint

     

    http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/index.php

     

    I recall an older version back when I was using an old Epson "Stylus" inkjet printer.  It was one of the first with a USB port, along with a parallel port and old-school Mac serial port, so it was very flexible and I used it for a long time.  I started using it with my pre-USB Mac running Mac OS 9, and kept using it when I got a Mac with USB ports running Mac OS X.  Toward the end, I found that the Gutenprint driver was better than the commercial driver from Epson (which was not being updated).  Their Supported Printers page lists a large number of "HP DeskJet" models.

     

    So the challenge is connectivity.  If I recall, the old DeskJet models used the gigantic parallel port, which was the standard printer port in the Windows world before USB.  Is that correct?  (HP's equivalent model for the Mac market was called "DeskWriter" with the Mac serial port.)  If it has a parallel port, there seem to be USB-to-parallel adapter cables out there.  Maybe you can use one of those, along with the appropriate Gutenprint driver.