A/UX: Printing to Serial LaserWriter Plus (8/94)


I have a Macintosh IIfx with 8MB of RAM and a 160MB hard drive running A/UX. I want to attach the Macintosh IIfx to a LaserWriter Plus and print to it serially using the printer port on the back of the Macintosh.

I've set the speed of the LaserWriter Plus to 9600bps, set up the print queue, enabled all relevant print daemons, and I've used the setport command to establish the speed of the printer port.

I've used a direct RS/232 cable (Hayes Modem Cable), 2 LocalTalk connectors, and 2 PhoneNET connectors, and I get the same results: the printer flashes its Ready lights, but never prints anything.

I made it work using AppleTalk. I've tried using the Enscript utility to establish direct communication with the print and am successful, but when I try to establish communication with the PostScript interpreter, I get garbage. Is this an A/UX issue or is it related to the serial ports of the Macintosh IIfx--or both?

We have never used a direct RS-232 cable (Hayes Modem Cable), 2 LocalTalk
connector, and 2 PhoneNET connectors to connect a LaserWriter Plus to a
Macintosh. For a direct connection of a Macintosh to a LaserWriter Plus,
We recommend you use a Mini-DIN-8 Male to DB-9 Male cable (cable number
590-0551, Apple finished goods number M0196). Furthermore, to make sure
the connection is working, you can use the "cu" command to verify it.

We are not quite sure what you mean by "established communication with the
PostScript interpreter". To print a PostScript format file directly, the
%! symbols must be the first two characters on the first line of the file
so that the rest of the file will be treated as the PostScript format by
the PostScript printer.


Article Change History:
25 Aug 1994 - Reviewed and updated.

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Published Date: Feb 20, 2012