Re: Apple IIgs and printers

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <339C2B93.7C90@nortel.ca>, David Applegate  <dca1@nortel.ca> wrote:
>One of my aunt's owns an Apple IIgs system and was 
>hoping that I could get some information for her.

   If you could provide more information as to what programs she's
running, this could help provide more targeted information. It'd be
nice to know what software she's using with the printer, as you'll see
in a minute that that has a fair amount of bearing on the solution.

>   1. Can she attach one of the newer HP printers
>      to her system?  Or any other inkjet type 
>      printer for that matter...

   For more information on this and many other Apple II subjects,
please visit the comp.sys.apple2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) at
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/a2/faq/csa2.html The following is a
summary from section 4.6 "Can I hook up a Laser printer ink jet or
bubble jet printer to my IIGS?"

   The HP Deskjet printers remain some of the most compatible printers
to connect to Apple IIs and use them with most applications. They are
parallel printers, while the GS's ports are serial. Parallel cards can
be found for not that much (check out either
comp.sys.apple2.marketplace for used ones, or several Apple II vendors
like Alltech Electronics (http://www.allelec.com) carry them new)

   Appleworks 4.0 and up should have Deskjet printer setups built in;
2.0 and 3.0 should be able to define a custom printer type easily and
feed it the proper codes. For well-behaved GS/OS apps, you can
purchase either the Harmonie (supports color printing) or Independence
(cheaper but B&W only) driver packages.

   There is a fuller list of what Harmonie supports in the way of
printers in the FAQ; too long to reproduce here.

   Some of the applications HP (and most other deskjet printers) are
incompatible with are GS programs that do not follow the rules (Print
Shop GS is one of the biggest offenders in this area), as well as
pre-GS graphics programs that have their own builtin printer support.

   If you are seriously attached to these incompatible programs, you
can connect your existing printer and the new one to your GS at once
and use them depending on the application. If you have the free slots,
you can have both active at once, or you can connect a serial printer
to the printer port, drop a parallel card in slot 1, and use the text
control panel (control-open apple-escape) to switch between them.

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
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