Printer for G3 OS 10.1.4

Question

I have an old G3 with OS 10.1.4 which my son is using. What is a good black and white printer for this model? Where can I find it?

Answer 1

The first printer for the Macintosh was the ImageWriter, later replaced by the ImageWriter II. It is an impact dot-matrix printer. By today's standards it is Loud when printing. The ribbons are cheap, and they tend to fade away rather than quit suddenly. The print quality is not up to today's expectations for business communication. The printers are indestructible. There are probably millions of them, and folks have trouble giving them away. There is a LocalTalk option card available that turns it into a Network printer. Under Mac OS X, Open Source drivers are available for both direct-connect and LocalTalk versions . [The beige G3 is almost the last Mac that can support it as a direct-connect, since it requires a serial port.]
When the LaserWriters first came out, they cost about the price of 1 to 2 entire Mac computers -- US$5,000 to $10,000. To justify that cost, it was made a Workgroup Printer, and attached anywhere on the Network, not to a single computer. Every computer on the Network could print to it, and the print quality was fabulous. The network of the day was AppleTalk/LocalTalk. Later models can be connected directly to Ethernet, and there are converters available for a reasonable price to connect an older model to Ethernet via a converter.
Our household has had multiple computers for a long time. I am strongly biased toward Network Printers, and I hate any machine that needs regular exercise or will not work (because its ink dried up).
I use a LaserWriter IIg for most work, it is a serious printer, but has a fan and is sometimes shut off to keep it quieter. I use a LaserWriter 4/600 PS for occasional jobs. It has a low-power standby mode that is completely silent, so it is always left on. I have recently acquired an HP Color Laser Printer (Network capable) which also sits in low-power mode most of the time. Laser Printer supplies are more expensive, but tend to last 3,000 pages or more.
I also still have an ImageWriter II (with network card), and I use it every week for printing household checks using Quicken. I have an ImageWriter LQ (with network card) but it is used only occasionally for large-format work and banners.
Most people respond to the "I need a Printer" problem by buying a new US$98 USB inkjet printer capable of connecting to a single computer. If you don't print on it for a while (I am told as little as two weeks) the inks will be partially dry when you go to print and you will have to waste ink just to get it to print in the first place, then print your pages. If the computer it is connected to is not on, that computer must be turned on before you can print from its printer. The ink runs out quickly, is not cheap, and has a tendency to grow stale while being stored.
Personally, I am willing to fiddle with things far longer than a lot of people, and put up with a lot to keep things working. But I have no patience with InkJet printers. It makes me crazy that I might have to replace the cartridge for no better reason than I did not print enough this month.