Personal LaserWriter NTR

I was just recently given an old Apple Personal LaserWriter NTR. I tried connecting it to my Performa 200 running Mac OS 7.5.5 with 10 MB of RAM. Out of the ten times I tried once I got a message stating "scanner motor malfunction." It never printed once while connected to that Mac. I then hooked it up to my Power Mac 5260/100 running Mac OS 8.6 which was able to print to it. When I attempted to enable download unlimited fonts I again got a error message regarding the scanner motor. I then ordered a kit from fixyourownprinter.com to replace the scanner motor. I then attempted to power the printer on & it turned on but all of the lights were off. According to the manual I got with it this indicates that the control board/density controller board isn't getting power. I have tried both fixyourownprinter.com & eBay. Neither have the replacement part I need. I would buy a Personal LaserWriter NT density control board but then I won't have a parallel port connector (I have PCs too). What else should I try to attempt to fix this printer?

Thurletta,
I appreciate the note of confidence. Two years ago
it was Henry that answered all the hard questions for
me.
My Laserwriter Select 360 has been a great machine
but toner cartidges for it now cost more than buying
a LW 16/600 ethernet capable printer AND toner
cartridge combined.
Find inexpensive parts to swap out you will over
spend on your NTR. That was our first laser printer
and I have 5 parts machines but I find it hard to
take the time to tinker with them when newer printers
are so cheap. My hat is off to you for getting as
far as you have. Dismantling a parts machine will be
your best education.
Jim
As for AppleTalk issues, Grant's comment about
disconnecting and restarting is the best guarantee of
renewed cooperation. I always turn off laser
printers when not in use because too long of a delay
between use will allow older versions of AppleTalk to
lose track of the device and then a reboot is
required.
I, too, always turn off everything after once having a lightning hit zap an LCII and modem through the phone cord.
Also, a belated acknowledgement and "thank you" to Henry.
My NTR is still going strong after "playing dead" a few months ago, and there is an old NT in the closet awaiting harvesting for parts should surgery become necessary. (Fortunately, it revived itself before I had to start taking the NT apart.)
The person who gave me the 360 also gave me eight cartridges so I'm good to go for a while on that. Both the NTR and 360 are so far working with the AsanteTalk bridge.
Thanks again for your help...I just hope we can somehow help the other fella who is still trying to get his NTR to work properly. My only suggestion for him is to contact olde-mac-milt on eBay who specializes in parts for old Macs to see if he has any ideas for getting his NTR to work with the 520.
Dual-boot G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9) PB 1400, PM 7600, PLW NTR, LW 360

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Personal LaserWriter NTR and Windows 7

I've used the Apple Personal LaserWriter NTR with my PC running Windows 2000 Professional for years. I'm replacing the old computer with a new one running Windows 7 and would dearly love to use my beloved LW NTR with it.
I know I can buy a Parallel to USB cable to connect the two. But is there a printer driver that will work with Windows 7? A search of this site suggests that the last printer driver Apple released is version 4.1 which is the one I use with my Windows 2000 computer. Will it work with Windows 7? If not, any other ideas/suggestions?
And a less important question: I also have an old Apple iBook clamshell laptop with OS X 10.4 (which I mostly use "on the road" for email and web browsing—it has an Airport card and is WiFi enabled). Can I cable it up to use with the LW NTR at home for printing?
Thanks in advance for any help.

These Printers are Postscript level 1 printers that can be identified and used under the Linux-Foundation Postscript level 1 driver.
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/MacOSX/pslevel1#Printers
LaserWriter
LaserWriter Plus
LaserWriter IINT
LaserWriter IINTX
Personal LaserWriter NT
All these printers are AppleTalk/LocalTalk printers.They also need a converter from AppleTalk-over-Ethernet to AppleTalk/LocalTalk to print in Macs without a round serial/LocalTalk port and/or Macs running Mac OS X.
The AsanteTalk OR the Farallon EtherMac iPrint LT can do the conversion for you. (There is also an unsupported Apple software solution that can be run on an OS 9, 8, or 7 Mac that has both Ethernet and a round serial port.)
If you have the printer set up on your iBook under Mac OS X, you can use Mac OS X Printer Sharing to share the Printer with Windows computers using SMB protocol:
Mac OS X 10.6 Help: Sharing your printer with Windows users

Personal Laserwriter NTR and Leopard

I would really like to use my laserwriter with Leopard, but I can't seem to get it going. I have an asantetalk so I would be connecting the printer to the computer via the ethernet port. Is there any place that has step-by-step instructions in how to do this? I know the printer driver came with Leopard, but when I click add printer it shows up in the list but then when I try to print it prints to my Lexmark C510 laser printer. Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you in advance! Cindy

Craig-
You are correct that Mac OS X does not come with a Postscript Rasterizer. But a Postscript level 2 printer does not need one (older printers like the ImageWriter certainly do). The computer sends postscript level 2 directly to the printer, and as long as the printer is level 2 or better, the printer rasterizes and images the pages itself without issue.
Using the asantetalk, the biggest issue is that the asantetalk does not re-acquire printers that disappear for any reason. I think the Farallon adapter is slightly better at this issue, but it sometimes has the same problem. The solution, described in the asantetalk documentation, is to guarantee that the asantetalk is powered up LAST, when everything else is stable and running.
So turn on the computer, turn on the printer, wait for the printer self-test lights to stop blinking, wait a little longer, then power up the asantetalk.
The phone cord you use must have all four conductors present. Sometimes you find one with only two. Check the plug for four brassy connector pins.
There is one more obscure issue that sometimes comes up with PhoneNet connectors. There should be something plugged into every phone jack. Where there is no cord to connect to the next device, there should be a "phone-jack mounted terminating resistor", a 120 Ohm resistor crimped into the outer pins on a phone plug. Genuine farallon ones had the resistor looped through a nylon washer.
To make a terminating resistor by hand, buy a surface mount wall jack with modular jack, a phone cord, and a 120 Ohm resistor. Connect the 120 Ohm resistor across the outer (Yellow and Black) lugs inside the wall jack. Plug it all together and you should be working great.

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.
So I have a laser printer that I cannot use. I'd like to get it up and running for my MacBoo Pro, too. Any advice?

The personal LaserWriter NTR and the Personal LaserWriter 320 are Postscript level 2 printers that can run with the built-in Mac OS X Drivers.
What is missing is a way to make the connection to recent machines that do not have a Printer/Modem/LocalTalk port. You can use the Mac's Ethernet port to carry AppleTalk packets (in addition to the standard TCP/IP packets) and use a converter to bridge from Ethernet to LocalTalk.
Two converters are available on the used market: The Farallon EtherMac iPrint LT and the Asante Asantetalk. The Asante may also be available new, but at a cost near US$100 new, you could get a more capable used Ethernet-capable printer for the same money.
If you have an older Mac that has a Printer/Modem/LocalTalk port and an Ethernet port and is still running OS 9 or earlier, you can download a package called LocalTalk Bridge to run in the background and do the conversion.
The other Personal LaserWriters would require a bridge AND a third-party driver.

Laserwriter NTR will it work with Tiger or Windows

I would like to donate my working Personal Laserwriter NTR to an organization, but since I'm not a Windows user I don't know if the printer would work on a Windows machine or if it can be configured to work in Mac OS 10.4. I do have the Asante-Talk device for the printer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

These printers are QuickDraw-only printers, do not use AppleTalk, and cannot be "recognized" or "identified" in the usual way. If you cannot get one of these to print by just sending data to it, it will not be useable under Mac OS X.
LaserWriter IISC
Personal LaserWriter SC
Personal LaserWriter LS
Personal LaserWriter 300
LaserWriter Select 300
These Printers are Postscript level 1 printers that can be identified and used under the Linux-Printing drivers, according to this site:
http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting/MacOSX/pslevel1#Printers
LaserWriter
LaserWriter Plus
LaserWriter IINT
LaserWriter IINTX
Personal LaserWriter NT
See this site for good third-party help on setting up that printer:
http://webpages.charter.net/mbroughtn/serial_printing.html

Apple Personal LaserWriter LS test page

Without using a Mac, how does one get an Apple Personal LaserWriter LS to print a test page? There's one on eBay I'd like the seller to test before I make a bid and I can't find anything on Apple's KB.
TIA.

First, the bad news. I spoke too soon:
Startup Test Pages:
The Personal LaserWriter SC, NT, and NTR generate a startup test page 2 – 3 minutes after you switch on the printer. The LS and LS/ L do not produce such a page.
Then, the other news:
On the LS backpanel, First remove the I/O board bracket. You can then access the test button through the 1/4-inch diameter opening in the end plate. Insert a pencil into this opening and it will contact the test print switch. Successful printing of the service test page -- a page of parallel vertical lines -- confirms print engine operation.
Message was edited by: Grant Bennet-Alder

How to connect my perfectly-working 20-year-old Apple Personal Laserwriter 320 to my iMac running Mountain Lion?

How to connect my perfectly-working 20-year-old Apple Personal Laserwriter 320 to my iMac running Mountain Lion?
Thank you, Morty S.

I have a perfectly-working LW 4/600 with exactly the same issue. They use localtalk - a long obsolete network connection, that doesn't connect to modern networks, and appletalk as the comm protocol.
I think the only choice you have is to use an old powerPC Mac as print server. You tell me which old Mac you have, with a localtalk connector, or that runs OS X 10.4 or earlier (so it speaks appletalk), and I'll tell you how I've done it for the past 11 years or so.
Right now I use a G4 running 10.4.11, plus an etherMac ethernet to localtalk adapter.
Before, I used a PMac 6100 running LPD server software.

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.
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.3) LaserWriter 320
iBook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.3) LaserWriter 320, iMac 9.2, iMac G5

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 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.
Anyone have a clue as to the least invasive way to get this working? She is happy with the computer and printer and does not have the money to upgrade.
Thanks,
Mike

Try using version 7.3 of the Chooser if you're using an older version.
(9864)

Personal Laserwriter LS and 6.0.8

I'm trying to set up a Pers. LW LS using 6.0.8 and the Laserwriter 300 driver, but I get a message telling me that the Laserwriter 300 driver needs a later Chooser. Any recommendations on where to find a Chooser that will work w/ 6.0.8 and the LW 300 driver? Or, where to find the original Personal LaserWriter LS driver that will work w/ 6.0.8 without changing the Chooser? Or, any other configuration that will work?
Many thanks,
-Andy

OK, good suggestion -- followed the install instructions for the GrayShare update -- used the Font DA Mover to install the new Chooser, dragged and dropped the included Laserwriter 300 driver and PrinterShare INIT into the System Folder. Now when I select the Laserwriter 300 icon in the Chooser, all seems great. Connected to the printer serial port, etc. etc.
Except now, I try to print, and it insists that the printer is not connected to the computer. I swear that the printer is connected to the port selected in the Chooser, that it's on, etc. I know that the port works and the printer works because I got everything to work under System 7.5.5 (it was dog slow on the Plus as you might imagine, but it printed fine). I've power cycled the printer, rebooted the Plus -- can't get the computer to see the printer.
Any ideas?

Personal LaserWriter 320

I have an old Personal LaserWriter 320 which worked perfectly when connected by Ethernet to my Power Mac G4. I have now connected it by Ethernet to my new iMac. My problem is that the printer now 'prints' a blank page between every genuine page. No tweaking of paper specs, margins, or defaults has worked. I can stop it by printing one copy of page 2 to page 2 (out of a 3 page document say) but if I ask for 2 copies of page 2 to page 2 the blank comes out between them -- just as when I ask for page1 to page 2.

I am using the EtherMac iPrint Adaptor which was supplied a few years ago with my G4 to enable me to use the printer (which I already owned).
I am using the built in Mac OS X Driver.
The printer uses A4 paper.
Page Setup allows me to choose between US Letter, A4, A4 Small, and others. I choose one or other of the A4 options every time. This seems to stay put in TextEdit, but not in Word, not in System Preferences.
Printing starts further up the page than the top margin says it should. It would appear that the computer always assumes that the printer uses US Letter paper.

Donating an unopened Personal Laserwriter toner cartridge, M0089LLA

I have a new, unopened, toner cartridge for an Apple Personal Laserwriter printer that just died on me and I would like to give it to someone (school or charity) that can use it, instead of throwing it out. Any suggestions?
The toner cartridge is an Apple # M0089 LL/A or an HP # 92275A (they are the same cartridge).
I am willing to mail it, drop it off, or deliver it to anyone / any school that can use this cartridge. I just don't want to trash it if it can be put to good use.
Please help me find a home for this cartridge.
Thank you.
Bert

bertbarry,
In Spokane, WA, home of the Gonzaga Bulldogs basketball team and the worlds largest Hoopshoot contest, and...and...and... there is a website called 'freecycle' that lets you post offerings. My wife teaches school, wanted a time clock for her classroom and found a dentist that was getting rid of one. All free, the only cost is reading all the requests that get posted. Google freecycle and see if there is one in your area.
I am setting up a sister who teaches near Seattle with a personal laser printer, 300, 310, 360 style. She could use different toner cartridge for printing class handouts for second graders.
I am sure someone closer could use yours. Otherwise, I collect older computers and printers and let kids take them apart and fix them up. They cannot hurt them, they were headed to the dump. If you want to slow boat your cartidge to the other Washington, we would gladly put it to good use.
Post back for more details or notice of success finding a freecycle program near you. : )
Jim
More Spokane promotional material: Time magazine printed an article about the organizers of Hoopfest wanting a way to relay scores of games to the central tabulating location. Someone from H/P set up a hot zone for an internet link all through downtown. After the event, no one turned off the connection and people continued to use the free web access. Starbucks and other businesses decided to donate to keep 'free access' and thus was born the first downtown hot zone. ( no I am not on the chamber of commerce, lol)

Personal LaserWriter 300, printer sharing

I have a Personal Laserwriter 300 connected with a serial cord to the printer port of a Power Macintosh G3 desktop, running OS 8.0. I am trying to share this printer over a network with my Power Macintosh G4 (AGP Graphics), running OS 9.2.2. Appletalk is active, and file sharing works fine because both macs are networked with ethernet cords to a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I have designated the LaserWriter 300 as a shared printer in the G3 chooser. Both macs have the LaserWriter 300 extension and Printer Share extension installed.
When I go to the G4, the shared printer icon appears in the list of printers available in the Chooser. I select it, and then try to print a document. A window pops up that says "spooling page 1", and it looks like it is working fine. Until suddently, a message pops up that says something like "you cannot print to this shared printer, please install the printer share extension and try again..." I'm confused, though, because I already have the printer share extension installed on both macs.
Thanks for any help anyone may have.

After a little experimentation, I found a workaround.
In the G4 (OS 9.2.2) Extensions Manager, I disabled the following items:
. USB Printer Sharing (Control Panel)
. USB Device Extension
. USB Printer Sharing Extension
Then I trashed the LaserWriter 300 desktop icon and restarted the computer. After restart, I went to the chooser and selected the LaserWriter 300 again so new icon appears on the desktop. Tried printing and it worked!
I tried a couple items to make sure this was consistent... SimpleText "read me" documents work fine. I can print from my browser too.
The only problem is with PDF files using Acrobat Reader... a message pops up on the G3 saying: "Not enough memory to print this document. Quit other applications and try printing again."
Also, not sure I want to permanently sacrifice turning off the USB printer sharing control panel/extensions listed above.

Personal LaserWriter IINT Won't Power Up

My Personal LaserWriter IINT will not power up.
When I had problem the first few times, I could fix it temporarily by removing the driver board and replacing it. (By the way, board itself does not seem to be problem, because I still have the original [non-NT] board and putting it in does not help.)
But now, removing and reinstalling the board no longer helps. Exchanging the power cord also didn't help.
I consider this printer my old friend. Any suggestions on what I might try or any advice on whether repair is possible?
fkokesh
eMac Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Welcome to Disussions
You may look at:
http://www.whoopis.com/computer_repair/
For LaserwriterII.pdf
Maybe you can check the Power supply.

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.
AsanteTalk allows you to connect an old Apple serial printer like the LaserWrtier NT to an Ethernet network using AppleTalk. AppleTalk is still usable via the OS X Network preferences.

Personal LaserWriter NTR

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