🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ferch.726543290@swiss.ucs.ubc.ca>, ferch@ucs.ubc.ca (Les Ferch) writes:
|> I'm looking into a way of sharing one laser printer among several
|> ethernet-connected Macs and Unix systems. I'm sure this is an FAQ, but I
|> will first relay some information that may be new to some of you. 
|> 
|> One product that promises to do this in a slick way is called "EtherWrite
|> LPR" from Compatible Systems. The product was announced in July but has
|> not shipped yet. I talked to the company this week and they think it will
|> be ready to ship sometime in February - we'll see. EtherWrite LPR is a box
|> that has two ports, one plugs into the LocalTalk port on a printer and the
|> other plugs into an ethernet network. It handles both EtherTalk from Macs
|> (i.e. printer shows up in Chooser) and TCP/IP (print from Unix systems
|> using lpr). It will have a SRP of about $1000.
|> 
|> What other methods for this amount of money or less are available for
|> acomplishing the same goal? Would the new version of AppleTalk Internet
|> Router work? 
|> 
|> I suppose a new printer that has an ethernet port that supports both
|> EtherTalk and TCP/IP (any available?) would be the best solution overall,
|> especially if the old printer can be used elsewhere. Or, the existing
|> LocalTalk printer could be used for the Macs only via LaserBridge from
|> Sonic Systems and a new TCP/IP compatible printer could be bought for the
|> Unix machines. 
|> 
|> One of the Sun machines has CAP installed already if that's any help. 

  We use etherprint box from Dayna ($350) and CAP's papif with 
good success.  The new laserwriter IIg is even better, you don't
even need to have the Dayna box.  Many thanks to the people that
work on CAP.

Sincerely,
Tang Tang
University of Virginia
ITC/Academic Computing Center           Internet: tt@virginia.edu
Gilmer Hall                             Bitnet:   tt@virginia
Charlottesville, Va.  22903             Phone:    (804) 924-0632

ferch@ucs.ubc.ca (Les Ferch) writes:
>One product that promises to do this in a slick way is called "EtherWrite
>LPR" from Compatible Systems. The product was announced in July but has
>not shipped yet. I talked to the company this week and they think it will
>be ready to ship sometime in February - we'll see. EtherWrite LPR is a box
>that has two ports, one plugs into the LocalTalk port on a printer and the
>other plugs into an ethernet network. It handles both EtherTalk from Macs
>(i.e. printer shows up in Chooser) and TCP/IP (print from Unix systems
>using lpr). It will have a SRP of about $1000.

We just got a couple of Dayna Etherprint boxes for our printers which
have only Localtalk and RS-232 ports.  They were around $300 a piece.
So you can save about $700 by just using something like CAP in conjunction
with one of these boxes.  I prefer to use PAP/Ethertalk over lpr/TCP/IP
when I have a choice because PAP is bidirectional so you can get PostScript
errors back from the printer - which is important to us.

Because the printer's we have do not support Adobe's Binary Communication
Protocol (BCP) over the serial ports, they are next to useless when
connected to the serial port of a UNIX box.  We cannot send binary image
data to the printer, so the UNIX applications have to generate straight
ASCII PostScript. When serving as print spoolers for the Macs, I use
a filter which preprocesses the jobs before they go out.  It looks for
%%BeginBinary comments and converts binary image data to ASCII, and
redefines the readstring operator.  It doesn't work in all cases, and it's
just plain slow to send twice as many bytes for each sample in an
image at 38400 baud.

So if you just have one or two printers, I'd go with the Etherprint boxes
and CAP, but if you have a bunch of Localtalk and RS-232 only devices, you
might consider a Gatorbox or something like that.  I just saw an ad for
something from Dayna called a "Pathfinder" for around $700.  If that
is a Localtalk<->Ethertalk bridge for $700, that's way cheaper than a
Gatorbox.


-Jonathan		hue@island.COM