# HP LaserJet 1100 compatibility?



## nkuvu (Mar 20, 2002)

I am in the process of becoming a Mac person.  AKA, I'm a mac newbie, especially since I don't have my own mac yet.  (Flat panel iMac is, strangely enough, not shipping yet)

For my Windows box, I have an HP LaserJet 1100.  I have ordered a cable which will convert the LaserJet's parallel connection to a USB connection.

Does anyone have experience with this printer and OS X?  Specifically, I'd like to know if I will be needing to write my own print drivers.    No, I doubt I could do that.  But is the LaserJet supported by OS X?  Where could I go to find out?

I went to HP's website.  Oh my dog (dyslexic non-offensive word there  ), that website is poorly organized.  I spent an hour looking for a printer cable.  The site is almost as bad as (shudder!) Microsoft's pages.

Can I shut up now?  Yep.


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## nkuvu (Mar 26, 2002)

Well, considering that no one has replied, I'll take that as a no.  

I sent email to HP, and they said


> Hewlett-Packard does not provide a printing solution
> to utilize the HP LaserJet 1100 Series printer with a
> Macintosh computer or as a PostScript printer.  There
> is no PostScript (TM) upgrade kit available for this
> ...



*Great.*  So I have a printer, and I can connect it to my Mac, and OS X even says "Yep, it's a LaserJet 1100".  But I can't print to it. (I tried on my roommie's iMac)

Anyone know of third party vendors so I can use my printer?

(crickets chirping.....)

Hello?  Anyone read this thread....?


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## nkuvu (Apr 15, 2002)

Feels kinda silly responding to my own post.  Did I just not give it a catchy enough title?  Next time it will be something like "Find out how you can make up to $63,292 _per week_!!!!"  

I really want to be able to print.  I have the connection (USB, o course).  I have the comptuer (flat panel iMac).  I have the printer.  I need a driver (or some third party software which can talk to the LaserJet).


Does _anyone_ have _any_ ideas on how to go about this?

Heck, I'll send a dollar to the first person who responds with useful information...


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## phatsharpie (Apr 15, 2002)

http://www.strydent.com/products/powerprint/usb.htm

I know plenty of people used to us this for printing to PC printers, but I don't think it's carbonized for OS X.

Good luck!

-B


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## nkuvu (Apr 15, 2002)

Thanks for the reply, but this is preventing me from using PowerPrint:


> Q - Will my native OS X applications print with my PowerPrint that is running in the "Classic" mode?
> A - No, PowerPrint in "Classic" mode will not be able to print your OS X-native applications.


And since all of the apps that I would be printing with are OS X native, no printing for you!


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## alexrd (Apr 15, 2002)

If you are reasonably comfortable on the command line, you could try using the ghostscript drivers. Basically, this printer, as an HP product, expects input as PCL4.0 (the 4.0 version of HP's page description language). Ghostscript is a free postscript emulator that also acts as a RIP between various PDL's (in this case, from postscript to PCL4)
There are three basic tools you need: lpd, the printing daemon, which ships with OSX and is configured through netinfo (ie, if you edit your /etc/printcap file, you'll need to do an niload)
ghostscript: already discussed.
Finally, you'll need a magic filter program (not strictly true; you can write a filter yourself, but it's a pain). A filter is a line in your printcap file that determines how to handle different file formats and how to translate them into your printer's PDL. The two big ones out there are apsfilter and magicfilter

Ghostscript is available through fink, as to the filters... they're not, but they should be fairly easy to build (especially magicfilter).

I just finished making this same printer work under NetBSD. It wasn't trivial, but it wasn't really that hard, either. It will probably be a hair more complicated under X since all the above-mentioned tools are already in NetBSD's package system (sort of like fink; let's you build and manage third party software) so there were no real porting hoops to jump through.

I've been meaning to try standard UNIX print services under OSX, but I don't have a printer to do it with (or a USB cable for the LJ1100). Has anyone else tried this with any success?

Another option might be CUPS (the Common Unix Printing System). Apple recently bought the rights to use this in OSX, so I suspect we'll all be seeing it soon. For now, you would have to build it yourself, which may well be a cast-iron bitch. OTOH, when and if Apple delivers it (complete with Aqua config tools, one would imagine) it definately _does_ have drivers that work with the 1100 (assuming apple doesn't pull them out).

One last thing: You might try using a driver for a LaserJet4 (not 4L, 4M, or anything else like that). If you can trick it into seeing the printer, the LJ4 uses almost the same PDL as the LJ1100 (actually, in CUPS, for the 1100, you use the LJ4 driver) so that may be worth a shot.

Hope this helps...
-alex.


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## nkuvu (Apr 15, 2002)

I may owe you a dollar, alex.  Man, I should have posted a monetary award the first time this thread came up...   No responses for nearly a month, then two in one day after posting that "I'll send you a dollar" bit.

Anyway, since this is connected via USB, OS X doesn't give me an option to choose a ppd file.  It identifies the printer, and lists it as unsupported.

RIP stands for...?

Any suggestions on where to get the filters?


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## alexrd (Apr 15, 2002)

Well, let me preface this by saying that this solution will require downloading and compiling source code. If this scares you, this may not be the way to go. If, on the other hand, it's old hat to you, or you're willing to give it a go.... 

That being said.

Start by looking at:

http://www.ghostscript.com/
and
http://fink.sourceforge.net/

to get started with ghostscript, then see:

http://www.apsfilter.org/
and
http://www.pell.portland.or.us/~orc/Code/magicfilter/

for more info on filters. Magicfilter has worse docs and will require you to build m4 (one of fink's packages) for it to work, but barring that, should be easier to set up. Apsfilter is the superior product (IMNSHO) but may give you some grief to compile (haven't tried on OSX myself...).

Also check out http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/corp-net-guide/x661.html
Which is the Print Serving section of the FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide. This will help give you an overview of BSD printing. Remember, the BSD layer of OSX is synched to FreeBSD, so this document is more or less right on. The one big thing to keep in mind is that all the text files the guide talks about editing need to be "checked in" to netinfo via niload (see man niload for more info). You may also want to check out Apple's "Understanding NetInfo" document (I don't have a URL, but it should be easy to find at apple.com)

Whew. That's just for starters!
Seriously, if you can get through all of that and it makes some kind of sense, and if you can also get ghostscript installed, you'll have come pretty far toward your goal.

Good luck!
-alex.

PS: As I said, I've been wanting to try this on OSX for shits and giggles. Post your results! Likewise, if I get off my duff and do any of this myself, I'll post any info I turn up.


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## alexrd (Apr 15, 2002)

Ah yes... RIP.

If memory serves, it's Raster Image Processor. Basically it's a tool that converts from one bitmap format to another (in your case, hopefully from postscript to HP's PCL4).

-alex.


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## nkuvu (Apr 16, 2002)

Compiling software??  Oh no, I can't do it!

Ha.  Ha.  Sorry.

Thanks for the warning, but I'm a software developer by trade, and have plenty of experience compiling on the Unix side of things...

This doesn't look like it will be a quick process, but I will let you know of my progress.

PM me if you want me to send you a dollar...


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## alexrd (Apr 16, 2002)

that's great! If you're comfortable building UNIX source this should be cake. Just keep in mind: the goal here is to set up lpr/lpd printing, in effect making your computer/printer into a network attatched lpr printer, then just set up Print Center to point to an lpr printer at localhost To look at it another way, you'll be setting up an parallel (not the data port) printing system alongside the Aqua printing system.

I left out this higher-level view before, but as a developer, It may actually help to look at things that way.

Do you know what UNIX dev file your printer maps to? That will be a key piece for creating your filter.

It's OK about the dollar, the warm comaradarie of fellow UNIX hacks is payment enough <whips cape over shoulder and flies off into the night>


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## nkuvu (Apr 16, 2002)

I have no idea what dev the USB ports point to.

Hopefully I'll be able to find out without too much trouble...


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## MDLarson (Apr 20, 2002)

Ahh I love these forums.    I crack up with you guys' sense of humor!

Anyway, I thought I'd drop in with some struggles I've been going through as far as PCL printers;  we want to be able to print packaging labels from any computer on the network.  The vast majority of printers out there are "PCL" printers, which traditionally have either an RS 232 port or a parallel port.  The people who want to sell their label printer to us say that they've had extensive success with Mac customers who use "PowerPrint for Networks" as a connecting device.  The driver software is supposed to be seamless.

The guy also said that HP's laser printers that happen to be Mac compatible have a PostScript to PCL device installed (JetDirect?).

Sometimes it stinks to work with old technology such as parallel when there's USB and Ethernet.


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## nkuvu (Apr 29, 2002)

OK, so my main hangup currently is time.  Not enough time in the day...

But the next hangup is that I can't find out which dev file (if one even exists) points to the USB ports.  I don't care if the dev file auto-detects, I'm not plugging and unplugging my printer willy nilly.  I remember making a dev file long ago in another Unix, but currently can't find any docs on doing it.  All of the USB dev file references I have found talk about this from a development POV, and I am pretty sure it's an OS thing.  Any ideas?

I couldn't get APS filter to compile -- something about an incorrect file type (I'm not at my computer, so I can't see the exact text).  I've downloaded magicfilter but haven't tried it yet.

I talked to PowerPrint's customer service.  The _only_ way I'd be able to use PowerPrint is to save everything to PDF, then go into Classic and print from there.  I would also have to pay them $80.  I asked if I could just purchase the software -- I have the cable already (and it wasn't something cheap enough for me to just throw away).  They said that it had to be a PowerPrint cable.  It took me three emails to get all of my questions answered, even though they were all contained in the first email.  They'd send me a response for one or two questions, and I'd reply with "What about my other questions?".  So I am not very comfortable with their customer service, either.  The CS guy also mentioned that "Well, you can buy a printer for OS X for about $50, so we probably won't be upgrading PowerPrint to OS X for a while."  Of course, if I wanted an _inkjet_ printer that applies, but it'd be about $300 for a new _laser printer_.  Grumble grumble....

Urg.  This is getting more and more frustrating.


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