Personal LaserWriter 300 and Macintosh SE

I have a Personal Laserwriter 300 and a Macintosh SE running system 6.0.8. After installing all the correct software, selecting the right settings (i think), and clicking print i get the message "There is a problem with the Printer. Check to make sure..." etc. But i know everything works (at least, the hardware) because I am able to plug the laserwriter into my beige g3 (os 9.2.2), enable printer sharing, network the G3 and SE using phonenet (or whatever they are) adapters, and print fine from the SE. It works over the network, but not when the printer is hooked directly to the SE. Would anybody know how to fix this? Maybe I am doing something wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The serial ports on a Mac can be used for two similar serial protocols. One is "serial", just what you would expect it to be. The other was originally called AppleTalk, but AppleTalk was greatly expanded when Ethernet came on the scene, so Apple tries to refer to it as LocalTalk, but they do not want to re-write the manuals from 1985, so the unambiguous way is to call it AppleTalk/LocalTalk.
According to the AppleSpec on the Personal LaserWriter 300, it is a serial-only printer, not an AppleTalk/Localtalk printer:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=112495
If you turn on Appletalk on the port the printer is using, I expect it will not work any more. AppleTalk/LocalTalk speed is 240,000 bits/sec, and I expect if you try to use PhoneNet cubes to connect to it, it will not work any more, because they are tuned to run best at a higher speed. There are around five different cables that end in a Mini-DIN-8 connector. The Apple System/Peripheral-8 cable, Part Number M0187 is the one you want. A modem cable will not be wired correctly.
Are you using the same cables each time? could you have a bad cable?

Similar Messages

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    After a little experimentation, I found a workaround.
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    . USB Printer Sharing Extension
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    Craig-
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  • Using Personal LaserWriter 300 w/eMac, OS X 2

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    Cave Man,
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  • Laserwriter Pro 600 or laserwriter 300 personal

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  • Personal Laserwriter under System 7

    I have a friend using an old Mac II ci (or cx - can't remember) under System 7 with the "tune up" applied. Her Personal Laserwriter ntx died and we bought a pristeen Personal Laserwriter LS. Trouble is, we don't have the System 7 printing tools disks any more. The printer came with System 6.4 disks that recognize they cannot be used with System 7. I downloaded the latest Personal Laserwriter 300 1.21 driver and it works fine on my System 9.22 Wallstreet. But, when we use that printer extension under System 7 and try to select the printer in the chooser, we get the error that the chooser is too old for that driver.
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    Try using version 7.3 of the Chooser if you're using an older version.
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  • Personal LaserWriter 320 print margin issues

    I just got a Personal LaserWriter 320 (which goes nicely with my Beige G3 running OS 9.2.1) I had been using a LaserWriter 300, and figured I could print documents pretty much the same - only to discover an amazing problem:
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  • I want to use my Personal Laserwriter, but it won't work with my imac

    I have a personal laserwriter printer. It work great with my older mac - Performa 580CD. However when I tried setting it up with my imac - using a MacOS 9.X driver and usb-serial adaptor - it only works with OS 9.x softeware.
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  • I can't get my G3 iBook (OS X 10.4.3) to drive a Personal LaserWriter 320.

    I have just resurrected my trusty Apple Personal LaserWriter 320 and the Asante Talk adapter that worked flawlessly on my iMac 9.2. Using the Ethernet port on my G3 iBook with Tiger I get the error message -50 when I try to add this printer to my list.
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    Do you have ethernet set up on the G3? It must have an IP address before appletalk will work. This is different from the way ethernet/appletalk worked on OS 9.

  • Personal LaserWriter NT OSX 10.4

    I have an iBook running OSX 10.4. Can I drive a Personal LaserWriter NT and if so where do I find the print drivers, Apple Talk and anything else to make it work.

    The old serial printers are going to be difficult to use. You need a device that lets you connect an Apple serial printer to Ethernet. The device you need was called AsanteTalk from Asante. Although the device is still found on their site it doesn't appear to be available for purchase any longer. Perhaps you may find one on eBay.
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    Is it possible to use my old Personal Laserwriter 300 with a Mac Mini (OS 10.4)? I have an EtherMac iPrint Adapter LT which makes it possible to physically connect the printer to the computer. I found some print drivers on the Apple site that appear to be appropriate when I run the Mac Mini on OS 9, but so far I have not been able to make it work. I am new to OS 10, so that may be my problem.
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    OS X 10.4 doesn't support AppleTalk. IF your Adapter cannot use TCP/IP for Ethernet this might be the problem.
    Perhaps you may post in the Printer area here:
    http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=600
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  • LaserWriter 300, OS 8 and Priority Number

    I am trying to connect a LaserWriter 300 to an old Performa running OS 8. I had previously used Color Stylewriters 2400 and 2500. I disconnected the Stylewriter and set up the LaserWriter according to the manual instructions. When I opened the Chooser, an icon for appeared for the Personal LaserWriter SC, which I assume is a different printer. The printer/modem port option did not appear when I selected the LaserWriter in the Chooser. I currently have it connected to the printer port. Anyway, since the icon appeared, I tried to troubleshoot by printing a document and got the following message: "No Personal LaserWriter SC is available. Check that the printer is propertly connected and switched on (it was) and make sure its priority number does not conflict with other SCSI devices." Does anyone know how to address this problem? What's a priority number?
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    30154--LaserWriter Printers: Mac OS Print Drivers and Cable Matrix
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  • Laserwriter IINT, personal laserwriter and OSX

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