Comments on: How-To: Resurrect Your AppleTalk Printer in Snow Leopard

By: Marty

Marty — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:44:03 +0000

The LaserWriter Pro 630 doesn’t support IP printing, so you are limited to either using a mac with older OS and print sharing, or the USB to Parallel trick as mentioned in the article. Either way a machine does need to stay on to make this work…

Use an old defunct ibook G3/500 that has a screen whose backlight flashes occasionally. This works as the print sharing box as well as serving other functions (I run Asterisk Voipon it).

Good luck and I think you can forget about the “select” sorry ;~<

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 19:32:50 +0000

I too just got my LaserWriter 16/600 to work in Snow Leopard. First I assigned a static IP address for the printer in my router. Then went into Apple Printer Utility via OS Tiger, and set the IP address to that address. Wows perfect! Even works via wifi from my MBP. Woohoo. This adds a few more years to the life of that great printer.

Thanks for everyone’s help here.

By: MrMojo

MrMojo — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 04:23:04 +0000

Bob-

Everything that I have read on the subject indicates that it simply won’t work when connected to a Time Capsule/Sase Station as a network printer. I tried it myself and No Go.

One possible problem is that your parallel-to-USB isn’t compatible for some reason. Some people try it with another brand of cable and it works.

Assuming that you have read all the above posts, you might try the Apple forum or Googling your question. An answer might turn up on another forum.

Good luck!

By: BOB

BOB — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 20:22:58 +0000

Having great difficulty gettting AppleWriter 16/600 to work with my Mac Mini… although I used it as parallel toUSB when connected to a PC netbook it functioned great in HP Laserjet emulation(since that ios mostly what is is) How can I connect it to my Apple Time Capsule/router and use it as a network printer? HOW? I tried a IEEE parallel to USB cable when connecting to the Mac Mini but printer never shows up in list and doesn’t print as with netbook PC in HP mode? Stumped… any help would be greatly appreciated.

By: tonyb

tonyb — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 15:54:16 +0000

pcs have floppies, too, for you…!

anyway, giving it an ip address from a c:a year 2000 macos 9.2 powerbook, i was able to connect my trusted year 1997 lw 12/640 (now with its whopping third cartridge) over the network in the house and print from that machine (using appletalk), one powerbook g4 running leopard and two macbook pros running snow leopard…still trying to get the thinkpad running windows xp in the kitchen to print to it, though

in short, thanks for this excellent write-up!

By: snnq

snnq — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 22:39:18 +0000

I love that no one else seems to have a problem with the fact that Apple ceased supporting Appletalk just as arbitrarily as they stopped using Firewire in the new models of their computers. Combine this with their ever-changing monitor ports, the dropping of UFS as an option in Disk Utility, and abandoning PowerPC and now their XServes…and you have a company far too fickle to rely on for a serious production environment.

I’ve moved my network off of OS X Server for good. And this month I’ll be modifying the network settings of all the client machines and printers. Sigh.

By: MrMojo

MrMojo — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:39:17 +0000

Update: Over the weekend my LaserWriter 360 quit printing under Snow Leopard using the Belkin cable. It had been acting dicey for a week or two, often printing a blank first page with some text on the top that was unrelated to what was in the file.

I have no idea why it quit printing and no combination of printer driver/DIP switch setting would resurrect the printer…

Fortunately, just as I was beginning to think that I would have to throw in the towel I did one more Google search and discovered this thread on the Apple forum: http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2519106&tstart=120

So I downloaded USBTB (http://buymelunch.org/printing/usbtb/) and now my LaserWriter is back with the living!

By: DB

DB — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:56:14 +0000

What about a LWPro 630 printer on the LAN with Macs connected having a variety of OS (9, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and an occasional drop-in PC) all via EtherNet (switch doesn’t have a USB port). We have a Select 360 hanging around too, but there’s no solution for that in these postings. Regardless, the Appletalk-enabled Macs may be off or asleep and we don’t want to have to start or wake them just to use print sharing. SL’s a printing problem. & why isn’t anyone suggesting a parallel-EtherNet adaptor?

FERNAND said:
“Just a little more information for whoever wants to follow this path, when you are in the Apple Printer Utility, select «Communication Configuration» tab, select «TCP/IP» tab, enter «192.168.1.150» in the box beside Printer’s IP Address and press the button «Set Defaults» at the top of the page.”

But Apple Printer Utility V2.2 (OS 9), when querying the 630, doesn’t have any tabs or TCP/IP options shown. There is a Printer’s Zone window in Communication Configuration saying “To select an EtherTalk Zone…” type it in – which now (OS 9 & Leopard) has a “*” in it (works great that way). This doesn’t seem an appropriate place to put a TCP address.

Would a parallel-EtherNet adaptor provide TCP addressing capability & printing?

And, its unclear a LWPro 630 even has TCP capability – there’s nothing about that in any manual, guide or on Apple’s site. So is it a big waste of time to try this approach? Ditto the Select 360. If so, what will work in the above LAN setup?

If we were to add an AirPort Extreme (A1143), would an EtherNet-USB or Parallel-USB adaptor plugged into that provide printer access to all our Macs?

Our LWPro 630 has only 15k pages used, max memory & suits our needs fine, so its not going to get tossed anytime soon. The Select 360 has even fewer pages on it.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 10 May 2010 06:16:43 +0000

The Laserwriter 8500 supports IP. Once configured, you can easily add it using its IP address in 10.6. It's an excellent printer. The key is setting the IP - you may need an old Mac running OS 9 and use the printer setup utility or Laserwriter utility to do this. Run it, find the printer via AppleTalk, and set any options you wish. Then save/update. Now, go to the Snow Leopard box and add the printer via TCP/IP.

By: Lenny

Lenny — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:58:13 +0000

Trying to print on an Apple LaserWriter Select 360.
It has an adapter to change the Centronics port to Ethernet.
I can get close but no brass ring. I get a variety of results by choosing several different printer drivers.
Some say printer is “paused” others say “busy, will try again is 30 seconds. I’ll continue to try. Any help out there?

By: sql

sql — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:58:17 +0000

mittelrl, I am able to connect and print to the printer now by doing the following.
I used my old mac with an epson utility to change the IP address to 192.168.1.99 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 , it looks like the default IP 11.22.33.44 was not a reachable IP in my network. I set up the printer as an IP printer “LDP” and used the GuttenPrint 5.3.2 Driver in SNOW Leapord.
I need to do some more testing on the print quality and print speed.
I might still try and test the USB to Parallel cable, yes I have a female centronic Parallel connector on the back of the printer.
Thanks for your response and help
SQL

By: mittelrl

mittelrl — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 01:05:48 +0000

sgl, I am not an expert at this stuff. But my hunch is that you might have to invest in the parallel plug converter (assuming you have the parallel female plug in the back of the printer) along with USB adapter plug for your Mac since the cable coming out of the parallel adapter is an Ethernet cable. [Ethernet to USB adapters can be purchased online.] If after trying everything possible with settings with the converter in place and the printer still doesn’t work with the Mac, then you can always return it and get most of your money back. At least you can say to tried.
By the way, my printer is working flawlessly and much faster now that I have the parallel plug converter as mentioned in my previous entries.

mittelrl

By: sql

sql — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:28:19 +0000

Hello,

I have an old EPSON Stylus Color 3000 ( spent $3500.00 ) that works well with MAC OS 9.2.2 via Ethernet. I can not make this printer work on my Mac Pro with Snow Leapord.

I have tried all Ideas in here accept the USB-Parallel.

EPSON does not have a driver that works with Snow Leapord.

My Priner IP is 11.22.33.44 with Subnetmask 255.255.255.0

I am unable to change the IP on the printer
Any help is appreciated, thank you Sql

By: Ted

Ted — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:07:56 +0000

Replaced an old Mini with a new one that has Snow Leopard (all my other mac’s are on 10.5.8). With much trial and error I managed to get the new machine to print to my Linksys PSUS4 print server via the HP print socket method however…It will print a page or 2 for text just fine but when I try to print a PDF such as a FedEx label the printer just flashes it’s lights and eventually times out. Then I have to unplug the print server and reset it to get it to print again. All the machines running 10.5.8 and Appletalk print just fine. Does anyone have any suggestions? This is very un-Apple like.

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 00:38:37 +0000

Mr. Greenbaum:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’d fumbled around over at the Apple Support forums, but never quite got this to work. With your clear instructions and the link to HP, I was able to configure my old, but trusty, HP LaserJet 4M+ to work with Snow Leopard.
It may not be a miracle, but it sure feels like it. And I’m delighted to not be buying a new printer. (Since my LaserJet came with a JetDirect card installed, I didn’t have to buy anything!) Thanks again.
Joe

By: Fernand

Fernand — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:09:18 +0000

Your solution works for me too.

Just a little more information for whoever wants to follow this path, when you are in the Apple Printer Utility, select «Communication Configuration» tab, select «TCP/IP» tab, enter «192.168.1.150» in the box beside Printer’s IP Address and press the button «Set Defaults» at the top of the page.

Now go back to Snow Leopard and add a new printer with this IP address and with the Apple printer driver corresponding to your printer.