🚀 go-pugleaf

Attached is a document I've been working on that describes a bunch of
approaches to getting HP LaserJets to work with Macintoshes.  It includes
info on the HP and Pacific Page PostScript cartridges, and a little bit
about the Adobe cartridge.  You can just skip over the stuff about
non-PostScript products; you can also ignore the Mac-specific stuff if you
are using some other computer.

Bottom line: buy the HP or Adobe cartridge, depending on which LaserJet
model you have.

If you have any corrections, additions, or other comments, please e-mail 'em
to me for future updates.  My address is at the end of the file.

---------- CUT HERE ----------
		Using HP LaserJets with Macintoshes
			revised 9-Oct-90

This document tells about using Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printers with
Macintosh computers.  LaserJets are a good bit cheaper than Apple's laser
printers, and are very high quality machines with a good company behind 'em;
furthermore there are a heck of a lot of them out there, so a lot of people
find themselves wanting to use one with a Mac.  LaserJets (hereafter LJs)
are not directly compatible with Macs, but there are several different
add-on or third-party products that make it possible to use them with Macs.
The plan here is to explain all these different products to help you decide
which one to use.

This discussion applies to the HP LaserJet line, which presently includes:
  * Series I:   the original LJ, LJ Plus, LJ Plus 500.
  * Series II:  LJ II, LJ IId, LJ IIp.
  * Series III: presently LJ III, LJ IIId; LJ IIIp is rumored to appear soon.
The Series I printers are obsolete, but lots of them are still kicking
around.  They have little (and not readily expandable) internal memory,
which limits what you can do with them.  For our purposes the Series III
printers are pretty much equivalent to the corresponding Series II printers,
except that IIIs have the "resolution enhancement" technology.  This makes a
noticeable improvement in text quality but (to my eye) doesn't do much for
graphics.

I have *not* attempted to say anything about HP's non-laser printers
(ThinkJet, DeskJet, DeskWriter, etc).  Some of the products discussed here
also work with those printers, some do not.  Also, some of the products
discussed here will work (more or less well) with HP-compatible printers
made by other manufacturers.  I don't know anything about the pitfalls in
this area.  [Anybody know anything about this?]


A LITTLE BACKGROUND: MAC PRINTER DRIVERS

The key piece of Mac software for printing is a "printer driver".
A printer driver takes drawing commands produced by a Mac application and
translates them into commands understood by a printer.  The icons you see
when you open the Chooser DA correspond to different printer drivers.  When
you say "Print", the application sends its drawing commands to the printer
driver currently selected by the Chooser; the printer driver in turn
sends commands to the physical printer.  This lets the application be
independent of the printer you use (in theory, anyway).

Mac applications can produce two kinds of drawing commands: Quickdraw
commands and PostScript commands.  All printer drivers accept Quickdraw
commands, but interpreting PostScript commands requires a large and complex
piece of software (the "PostScript interpreter", which is built into
PostScript printers).  Currently, printer drivers for PostScript printers
simply pass PostScript drawing commands straight through to the printer;
drivers for non-PostScript printers reject PostScript drawing commands
altogether.  Hence you cannot print PostScript images on non-PostScript
printers.  [Some printer drivers containing PostScript interpreters are
starting to appear; one is "Freedom of Press" from Custom Applications.
These interpreters are not real Adobe PostScript, and so probably have
compatibility problems.  I'd appreciate getting details on how well FoP
and the others work.]

Apple includes printer drivers for all its printers with the regular Mac
system software.  The Apple ImageWriter drivers and the LaserWriter IISC
driver are each specific to one kind of printer (all of these are
non-PostScript printers).  But the regular LaserWriter driver can be used
with any PostScript printer, because the PostScript printer command language
is standardized.

To use a non-Apple printer, you can either make it look like one of the
Apple printers at the hardware level (and then use that Apple printer
driver), or you can use a non-Apple printer driver that emits the right kind
of commands for that printer.  Products exist that take each of these
approaches.  Hardware-level approaches can be further broken down into
"PostScript" and "other" (other being ImageWriter or IISC compatibles).
The advantage of PostScript is that you get to use PostScript graphics.
PostScript fonts used to be restricted to PS printers, but with the
appearance of Adobe Type Manager (ATM), PS fonts can be used with other
printers too; so that advantage is less significant than it used to be.

VERY IMPORTANT FACT:  Many Mac applications do not work very well with
non-Apple printer drivers.  (HyperCard and many Microsoft applications are
particularly blatant offenders.)  This is partly Apple's fault; they never
published a well-defined standard for printer drivers.  Because of this, if
you have a compatibility problem between an application and a non-Apple
printer driver, it's hard to fix the blame for the problem.  In my
experience, it's tough to get satisfaction from either the application's
manufacturer or the printer driver's manufacturer; you tend to get
finger-pointing on both sides.  This is a very strong reason for taking the
hardware-level adaptation approach; then you use an Apple driver, and you
can blame the application if it has trouble printing.

It is rumored that Apple is working on a new, better-documented printer
driver definition.  When that appears (it may or may not make it into System
7.0), compatibility problems should lessen, but not until application *and*
printer driver writers revise their code to use the new definition.  In the
short run the new definition will probably create compatibility problems of
its own --- another reason to stick to hardware-level solutions.  [If anyone
out there knows specifics about the new print architecture and can talk,
I'd appreciate hearing about possible compatibility problems.]


THE PRODUCT LINEUP:

These are the products discussed in this document:

Software solutions (these are non-Apple printer drivers):
	* JetLink Express from GDT Softworks
	* MacPrint from Insight Development
Each of these is actually a family of printer drivers, with members for the
different LJ models and for other kinds of printers.  (A couple of older
LJ-compatible drivers are LaserStart and its successor Printworks, both from
SoftStyle.  These are inferior to the ones reviewed here.)

Hardware solutions (these make LJs compatible with Apple printer drivers):
	* The Grappler series from Orange Micro.
	  The Grappler LS and Grappler LX are for LJs and compatible
	  printers, others are for other kinds of printers.
	* HP's PostScript cartridge.
	  Works with LJ IId, IIp, III, and IIId; presumably with IIIp too.
	* Adobe's PostScript cartridge for LJ II (*only*).
	* Pacific Data's "MacPage" PostScript-clone cartridge.
	  Works with LJ II, IId, IIp, and III.

The PostScript cartridges plug right into the printer and will NOT work with
anything except the specified type(s) of printer.  The other products should
work with HP-compatible printers as well as true HPs.

Each of these products is discussed in a separate section below; then
there's a summary at the end.  I've tried to quote both list price and
"street price", the latter being typical price from reputable mail-order
houses like MacConnection.  If you are at a university you can probably buy
HP products at academic discount, which is somewhat lower than street price.
I don't know if any of the other vendors offer academic discounts.


JETLINK EXPRESS:

JetLink Express (JLE) lists at $149 from GDT Softworks, (604) 291-9121;
street price about $90.  A Mac-to-LJ cable is included.

JLE works by creating a bitmap image of the page to be printed, then dumping
that into the printer.  The trouble with this is that a full page at 300dpi
is about 1 Megabyte of data, which takes a while to shove over a serial
line.  (You definitely want to be running the printer at its maximum
19200bps, not at 9600 which is all that some PCs can manage --- this may be
a problem if you intend to switch the printer between PC and Mac.)  GDT has
put a lot of work into doing this as fast as possible; typical print times
are two to four minutes per page, less if the page is only partly covered.
If you are in a hurry you can work at 150 or even 75 dpi, which reduces the
data volume and print time by a factor of 4 or 16, with a loss in print
quality.  (By now they may have an LJ III-specific driver that understands
the III's graphic data compression options; that would speed things up too.)

Aside from the speed problem, you need enough memory in the printer to hold
the bitmap image (LJs have to store the entire page until it's printed,
unlike some other printers such as DeskJets).  This is not too much of a
problem with the newer LJs, which come with 1Mb of memory standard.  It is a
problem with LJ Pluses, which have only 1/2 Mb and are not readily
upgradable; but it turns out that JLE is pretty smart about not dumping
white space, and this saves printer memory as well as time.  I found that
most 300dpi letter size pages would print on a Plus, although some
rearrangement of the page was sometimes necessary to put the white space
where JLE could take advantage of it.  For densely printed or legal-size
pages you may be forced to back off to 150dpi to avoid LJ Plus memory
overflow.  An original LJ has even less memory and is probably close to
unusable with JLE.

Text is imaged from Macintosh screen fonts, which means you get the jaggies
unless you have large font sizes installed (you need 4x the screen size for
best results at 300dpi).  GDT has alleviated this problem by implementing
scalable fonts inside their driver.  JLE comes with scalable Times,
Helvetica, Courier, and Symbol lookalike fonts, and you can buy more
(basically the LaserWriter Plus font set) for $200.  HOWEVER, there are bugs
in their font handling.  I found quite a lot of cases where what you saw on
the screen was not what you got printed out, at least with the applications
I was using (principally ReadySetGo).  For example, "condensed" or
"extended" text would be properly spaced only if it wasn't also bold or
italic.

I would recommend ignoring GDT's scalable fonts, and instead investing in
Adobe Type Manager and PostScript fonts.  This is slower than GDT's code,
but has fewer bugs and gives you access to a vastly larger font library.

You can squeeze out some additional speed by buying a serial-to-parallel
converter box (about $90 from GDT).  This is a win because LJs can accept
graphics data through their parallel ports faster than through their serial
ports.  JLE can drive the Mac's serial port at speeds above 19200bps when it
is mated to the converter.  GDT claims this setup is 25% to 50% faster; I
have not tried it.  (Using parallel rather than serial can also simplify
sharing the printer with a PC; just add a parallel A/B switch box.  HP
recommends against mechanical switch boxes, but electronic ones are safe.)

I have not found any print spoolers that work with JLE.  (SuperLaserSpool's
latest version is claimed to, by GDT, but does NOT work reliably in my
experience.)  There are some application compatibility problems, but most
seem related to GDT's scalable fonts, and would probably go away if you
used ATM instead.

My really big gripe is that GDT does not fix reported bugs, even when you
tell them exactly what the problem is and where (I spent some time
disassembling their driver for my own amusement).  After waiting 6 months
and paying for an upgrade I would sure as hell expect to get a fix...

GDT has recently released version 2.0 of JLE; this version may or may not
improve the bug/compatibility situation.  [I'd like to hear from anyone who
has the new version; having moved up to a PostScript printer, I'm not going
to be buying it myself.]


MACPRINT:

MacPrint (MP) lists at $149 from Insight Development, (415) 652-4115;
street price about $95.  A Mac-to-LJ cable is included.
[I have not used MacPrint personally; corrections to this section
would be appreciated.]

MP takes a different approach to printing text: instead of imaging
characters as bitmaps, it sends the raw text to the printer to be printed in
one of the printer's fonts (either built-in or installed in a plug-in font
cartridge).  This is a lot faster than JLE's bitmaps, because MP only needs
to send 1 byte per character, but it has its own drawbacks; chiefly, you
get funny spacing unless the Mac is using a screen font that exactly matches
the printer font size-wise.  MP comes with some screen fonts that match some
standard HP printer fonts.  [I don't know if MP supports the III's scalable
printer fonts yet.]  MP uses bitmap printing for Mac fonts that don't
correspond to HP fonts, and for graphics images.  You can use ATM with MP;
the PostScript fonts are then output using bitmap printing.

Actually JLE can use printer fonts too; they call it "draft mode", and don't
support any bitmap printing in that mode.  The real difference between the
two products is that JLE is optimized to do bitmaps well, whereas MP
concentrates on doing HP-font text well.  JLE is considerably faster than MP
at bitmap printing; so JLE is quicker for most graphics and for any font
that's not built into the printer.

While I have not used MP personally, I've heard from a number of satisfied
users.  Based on data so far, it appears that MP has fewer compatibility
problems than JLE [though not zero; MacWrite 4.5 is said not to work with
MP, but does work with JLE].  This fact alone is probably enough to tilt the
scales in favor of MP for most people.

For what it's worth, Hewlett-Packard thinks enough of MacPrint to resell it
in their catalog; I can state from personal experience that offering other
people's software is not something they do lightly.


GRAPPLER:

The Grappler LX is the current product for LaserJets; earlier versions for
LJs included the Grappler LS and LQ.  [Is the LS still available?]  List
price for the LX is $199 from Orange Micro, (800) 223-8029; street price
about $130.

Grappler is an external box that converts Apple ImageWriter print data into
LJ commands.  (There are Grappler versions for other popular printers too.)
It uses the Apple "ImageWriter LQ" printer driver, but modifies the driver
slightly so that it uses the correct page size and resolution for the
printer.  (For example, with an LJ a 300dpi image needs to be produced,
not the 216dpi used by the ImageWriter LQ.  Apparently the driver is written
in such a way that this change is easy to make.)

The data being sent to the printer is bitmaps, so speed leaves something to
be desired, and you need adequate memory in the printer (Orange Micro
recommends 1Mb minimum).  See previous JLE discussion.  The Grappler is
probably not as smart as JLE about optimizing away white space, so it
probably won't cope as well as JLE does with 1/2 Mb LJ Pluses (and in fact
Orange Micro doesn't officially support Pluses with the Grappler).

Like JLE, Grappler depends on the Mac to supply fonts; you need large size
fonts to get high resolution text.  Orange Micro provides large-size Times,
Helvetica, and Courier lookalike fonts.  As with JLE, purchasing ATM and
PostScript fonts is probably the best solution if you want publication
quality output.

[I have not used a Grappler personally.  More info would be appreciated.
What's the difference between LX, LS, LQ Grapplers?  What is performance
like?  Are there any application compatibility problems?]


GENERAL COMMENTS ABOUT POSTSCRIPT CARTRIDGES:

PostScript (PS) cartridges are available for Series II and III LJs; the
Series I printers are not sufficiently expandable to support a PS cart.

The standard Apple LaserWriter driver expects to talk to PS printers over an
AppleTalk network.  The "network" can be just a simple cable between your
Mac and the printer, but the printer has to use the AppleTalk protocol.
If you happen to have multiple Macs, an AppleTalk network is a cheap and
easy way to share the printer; even if you have only one Mac, AppleTalk is
faster and more error-proof than RS232 protocol.  However, if you are
on a tight budget you may not want to shell out extra money for
AppleTalk-capable printer hardware.

If you buy the Adobe or Pacific Data PostScript cartridges, the manufacturer
will give you a modified LaserWriter driver that expects to use a standard
RS232 connection to the printer.  If you buy HP's PostScript cartridge, HP
does not give you an RS232-capable printer driver; they want to also sell
you a $200+ AppleTalk interface board for the printer.  You can buy that, or
you can buy an RS232-modified version of the Apple LaserWriter printer
driver from APDA, for only $20 plus whatever the APDA membership fee is
these days.  (See below.)  This will let you hook up to the LJ's standard
serial port, saving some money.

[I have no data about possible application compatibility problems with these
modified printer drivers.  Another possible drawback of using an RS232
connection is that utilities that expect to talk directly to the printer
(SendPS, LaserStatus, etc.) may not work.  Does anyone have any experience
with this?]

If you are willing to wait a while, Adobe's forthcoming rewrite of the
LaserWriter driver will most likely support both Appletalk and RS232
connections to PostScript printers.  Of course they will not give it away
free, but it will surely be cheaper than the HP AppleTalk board.  It remains
to be seen how many compatibility problems will arise with the Adobe driver.

For all the PS cartridges, you must buy extra internal memory for the
printer, as the standard amount of memory is not enough.  For HP's and
Pacific Data's cartridges you need 2 Megabytes add-on memory; to do
double-sided printing in a IId or IIId you need 4Mb add-on (HP's cart only,
PD's won't do this at all).  Adobe says 1.5Mb add-on is sufficient for their
cart.  [Actually the HP cart will function with just 1Mb add-on, but I've
heard reports of trouble printing complex pages with the minimum.
HP recommends 2Mb add-on and I'd say to follow their recommendation.]

Don't buy the extra memory from HP; they charge about three times what it is
worth.  Several third-party vendors make a comfortable living selling
HP-compatible memory boards at more realistic prices.  I bought mine from
South Coast Electronics (213-208-3260) for $270 for a 2Mb board with
sockets for 2 more Mb (that's a March 1990 price and it's probably fallen
since then).  Pacific Data Products has a good reputation for their HP
memory boards.  [Reports about other memory vendors would be appreciated.]


HP'S POSTSCRIPT CARTRIDGE:

HP Part Number 33439P, lists at $695; street price about $550.  This
contains a genuine Adobe PostScript interpreter, version 52.2 (very recent).
The cartridge works in LJ IId, IIp, and all Series III models, but *not*
in the original Series II LJ.  (See the Adobe cartridge if you have a II.)

You'll also need extra printer memory, as noted above.  2Mb extra is
recommended (4Mb extra for a IId or IIId; double-sided printing does not
work with less).  You might need more memory if you use *lots* of downloaded
PostScript fonts.  (I've had no trouble printing font sample documents with
a dozen or more downloaded fonts, so I think that 2Mb will satisfy all
normal needs.)

If you want to connect the printer using AppleTalk protocol, you'll need an
AppleTalk Interface Kit, HP part # 33416A; list price is $275, street price
about $220.  (I bought one of the first ones off the assembly line; street
price may have fallen by now.  The same may be true of the PS cart itself.)

If you need to save some money, you can use a slower RS232 connection:
instead of the AT interface kit, buy APDA's item M7601 "Asynchronous
LaserWriter Driver" for $20.  (There's also a one time membership charge to
join APDA.  If anyone knows the current fee and how to join, please let me
know for inclusion here.)  The APDA driver doesn't know anything about
printer features that aren't in Apple LaserWriters, such as the double sided
printing capability of the IId and IIId; otherwise it should work OK.
NOTE: this driver calls itself v4.0, but apparently it is based on v6.0 of
the standard driver; so it's not as out of date as you might think from the
number.  [If anyone has used this driver, I'd appreciate hearing about any
gotchas.  Does it work just like the regular LaserWriter driver?]

Finally, you need to buy a cable.  If you go the AppleTalk route, you can
buy AppleTalk cabling (expensive, but necessary if you want to network the
printer to more than one Mac); or if you have just one Mac, you can buy a
plain "null modem" cable.  (Your Apple dealer will sell you one if you ask
for an ImageWriter II cable; they're about $10.)  NOTE: for safety with the
cheaper cable, you should be sure the Mac and printer are both plugged into
the same power outlet.  The main reason AppleTalk is so expensive is that
there are isolation transformers in the cabling.  You don't need these if
you have only one Mac and one printer and they are on the same power circuit.

[I don't know what kind of cable is required to hook up an RS232 connection;
probably this info is in the APDA driver documentation, but details would be
appreciated.  HP does *not* provide any cable with the printer.]

If you buy the AppleTalk card, you also get a customized version of the
Apple LaserWriter printer driver; however, you can use the regular Apple
driver if you want to.  The customized driver is mainly useful for getting
at specialized features, such as double-sided printing on the IId or
changing resolution enhancement settings on a III.  With a IIp you might as
well use the Apple driver.  (I've found some applications that work OK with
the Apple driver but not with the HP driver: DesignStudio 1.0, Multiplan
1.0, MS Word 3.0.  SuperLaserSpool seems to have problems with the HP driver
too.)

This combo gives you the functional equivalent of a LaserWriter IINT,
although benchmarks recently reported in MacUser (Oct. 90 issue) make it
look a bit slower than a IINT.  I detect considerable anti-HP bias in the
text of the MacUser review [in particular, their statements about LJ III
print quality are way out of line with my experience], but I don't think
they fudged the timing numbers.

The HP PS cartridge is a solid, user-friendly implementation.  For example,
you can enable or disable the power-up test page from the front panel,
instead of having to send an arcane bit of PostScript.  Since the PS
interpreter is by Adobe, it should have no deviations from the de facto
PS standard.

One shortcoming of the HP cart is that to switch between PostScript and
native HP mode, you have to power down the printer and insert or remove the
PS cart.  This is very easy, but since you have to wait through the power-up
selftest, the elapsed time to swap is a couple of minutes.  This is not a
big problem unless you want to share the printer with a PC on a daily basis.
Also note that any HP-type fonts built into the printer are totally ignored
by the PS cartridge; conversely, you can't use PS fonts in HP mode.


ADOBE'S POSTSCRIPT CARTRIDGE:

Adobe offers a PostScript cartridge for the original (now discontinued)
Series II LJ.  This cart does *not* work in the IId, IIp, or Series III
models.  (Adobe and HP evidently have an agreement not to tread on each
other's toes here, as the HP cartridge works in exactly the printers
Adobe's doesn't.)

I believe street price for this cartridge is about $300.  It comes with
an RS232-based printer driver and a cable, I think.  [As far as I know,
it will *not* work with the HP AppleTalk interface.]  You still must buy
at least 1.5Mb add-on memory; see above for recommendations.

I have heard that this cart allows programmable switching between PS and
HP modes, unlike HP's cart.  Otherwise I have no details about it.  Reports
from users would be appreciated.


PACIFIC DATA'S "MACPAGE" POSTSCRIPT-CLONE CARTRIDGE:

The MacPage cartridge is from Pacific Data Products, (619) 552-0880; I don't
have list price, but street price is about $450.  It works in LJ II, IIp,
IId, or III printers.  (NB: the IId's double sided printing capability is
NOT currently supported.  I don't know if it works in the IIId yet.)
A cable and RS232 printer driver are included.  (You cannot use the HP
AppleTalk interface.)  You also need 2Mbytes add-on memory; see above for
recommendations.  The cart does not use an Adobe PostScript interpreter, but
rather a "clone" from Phoenix Technologies.

I have not personally used the Pacific Data cart, but I have seen numerous
complaints about it on the net; it is apparently slow, buggy, and not very
compatible with real Adobe PostScript.  It is also reported that the
manufacturer is not responsive to complaints, and that their tech support
people are unfamiliar with Macintoshes.  A typical complaint is:
> If it runs out of paper during a print job, adding more paper doesn't
> continue the job --- you have to reset the printer.  (Bad news, folks.
> Sending an end-of-job (^D) down the line doesn't help, and Pacific Data
> isn't interested in problems like this.)
I have some more complaints on file if you need further dissuasion...

One advantage of the PD cart over HP's is that you can switch between
PS and native HP mode with a software command.  The printer does a powerup
selftest cycle in response, so switching isn't much faster than with HP's,
but at least you can do it without manual intervention.

Unless the software switch feature is absolutely essential to you, the HP
cartridge is the superior choice for LJ IId, IIp, and III.  The Adobe cart
is probably the better choice if you have an original LJ II, but I don't
have any direct reports on it.


SUMMARY:

If you have an original LaserJet (not Plus), MacPrint is probably your only
choice; you don't have enough printer memory to run JLE or Grappler, except
in draft mode which is not their strong point.  Personally I'd say to
recycle the printer as a boat anchor and buy a IIp.

If you have an LJ Plus or Plus 500, Grappler is probably unusable [has
anyone tried it?]; JLE is workable but can be aggravating, as small changes
to a page can make it overflow printer memory.  MacPrint seems to be the
best choice.  If you want to do a lot of full page 300dpi graphics, you
should go with JLE anyway, as it does a somewhat better job of data
compression, giving you a better shot at fitting the image into printer
memory.  You should probably buy ATM regardless of which printer driver you
choose.

For any Series II or III, I think you should go the PostScript route if at
all feasible.  The up front expense will be more than repaid in reduced
aggravation and added graphics capability.  If you can't afford the price of
admission, I'd recommend buying MacPrint [or possibly Grappler?] and ATM.
That way you can at least be using PostScript fonts, and when you finally
scrape up the cash for a PostScript upgrade you will still be able to use
your font library.

These remarks are all based on my own experiences, which are mainly desktop
publishing chores.  No-hassle operation and fussy text appearance
requirements were my big criteria.  If you are mainly interested in fast
text output and are not picky about your fonts, you may well find that
MacPrint is better than PostScript.

The situation is likely to change considerably when System 7.0 is released,
both due to the new print architecture and due to the availability of
TrueType scalable fonts.  [If anyone in the know is willing to say anything
about the best bets for surviving System 7, please do!]

Before committing to any non-PostScript solution, I'd recommend thorough
tests with the application programs you plan to use.  If that's not
possible, try posting a specific query about the combinations you're
interested in.  [I'd appreciate such data for inclusion in this message.]


A PLEA FOR MORE DATA:

Please e-mail comments, corrections, confirmations, etc to the address below.
I'd appreciate not getting flamed too severely for any errors...

-- 
				tom lane
Internet: tgl@cs.cmu.edu
UUCP: <your favorite internet/arpanet gateway>!cs.cmu.edu!tgl
BITNET: tgl%cs.cmu.edu@cmuccvma
CompuServe: >internet:tgl@cs.cmu.edu