Using an Apple Laserwriter 8500 with Snow Leopard

[ahmad thomson]

Every two years or so, I turn to the wisdom of MacGurus! ~ Now that appletalk has gone for good, I've followed the instructions given at http://thedambook.com/blog/?p=308 ~ but find that although there is a connection, my Laserwriter 8500 is very slow to print indeed. ~ I've tried linking up to CUPS at http://localhost:631/ and according to this it takes 25 minutes to print one page! Is this possibly because of the connection via a Belkin switch to my MacPro ~ or something else of which I am unaware? Thank you. (I tried leaving a reply on the http://thedambook.com/blog/?p=308 link, but it could not read my CAPTCHA cookie even though my cookies are enabled.)

[rwm]

I was just off to bed. Take a look at this Google Search I'll search better tomorrow if no one else has ideas.

Every two years or so, I turn to the wisdom of MacGurus!

Geez, I need help monthly.

[ahmad thomson]

Thank you for the link ~ unfortunately it wouldn't open this side of the pond ~ I was just redirected to http://www.google.co.uk/

However, I think I've asked myself the right question now : does the printer have enough memory installed? In fact it only has 20 MB ~ which was fine for yesteryear in my beige G3 days, but that isn't so much now.

I suddenly realised that the file which took so long to print was a 12MB pdf with embedded fonts and a colour profile, so of course it was going to take time to print as greyscale on my aged but still trusty 8500.

When I tried printing out a one full page black and white email on the 8500, it took only a few seconds ~ and better quality than my main MFC laser printer.

So I've ordered a 32MB SIMM to bring the 8500's memory up to the maximum 48MB, hoping that this will make a difference.

Of course I would be grateful for any other tips that might improve the 8500's performance ~ thank you.

Quote :

"I need help monthly."

That must mean you know a lot. The more you know, the more you know there is to know. The less you know, the more you don't know that you don't know!

Quote :

The difference between a Mac owner and a PC owner is that Mac owners love their Macs.

[rwm]

That might be right. I just replaced a nice Lexmark laser printer that only had 4 MB RAM. The new one is a Brother with 32 MB ... I was stunned by the difference. It's newer but similar machines. I just use BW and simple text printing. So memory has never been an issue for me.

[unclemac]

Can't speak to the 8500 specifically, but a work around for lots of older printers that are AT only:

Keep an older Mac on the network that supports AT (anything from 10.5 back). Make it your print server by setting up the AT printer on it, then share it on the network via System Preferences. Once shared, it will show up on the 10.6 Mac as "Bonjour Shared".

Done this for several shops with (Xerox 7300 or similar) and it has worked without a hitch. Should work with your old war horse too.

Hopefully you have an older Mac handy to try this with. A cute G4 iMac running 10.6 can sit quietly serving your print jobs. Be sure to turn off sleep on the "print server" mac; once sleeping it will disconnect from the network.

[unclemac]

That must mean you know a lot. The more you know, the more you know there is to know. The less you know, the more you don't know that you don't know!

Indeed. A good read that illuminates this nicely.

[ahmad thomson]

Dear rwm and unclemac ~ I thought I'd wait until I had the extra RAM installed before responding ~ it doesn't seem to make much difference. I think my "older mac" is too old to act as a server, being a beige G3 PPC and accordingly pre-bonjour. At least I can still print to the 8500 from my MacPro, using the LPD/LPR setup ~ so I can continue to use it as my back up printer, albeit a rather slow one. Thanks for your input anyway.

[rwm]

Keep in touch.

[unclemac]

Keep your eyes peeled for a used/free Mac that can run 10.3 or 10.4 to use as a print server, and you will be set again.

[biggles]

I have a B&WG3 with a 500MHz Sonnet G4 upgrade looking for a good home! I'm a few miles North of Bedford. Come and get it if you want it

[ahmad thomson]

Thank you very much ~ but I think I'll wait for a Mac running 10.5 or 10.4 ~ given the lack of space on and below my desk, I'm hoping a mac mini will come my way.

[ahmad thomson]

Dear rwm and unclemac, I managed to acquire a MacMini G4 with 10.5.8 installed via Ebay for a reasonable price and found it very easy to set up as a print server as you suggested ~ thank you! Here's hoping Lion doesn't gobble it up and require another workaround ~ although it's fun finding one.