Hello,

Your best bet, although it might cost a couple $$, is to get a jet direct for the LaserJet 4, (either internal or external), and have your Mac talk to it through the ethernet port. You can assign the jet direct an IP number, or an AppleTalk name, and printing will work just fine with the standard drivers.

I have not known of any way to wire a parallel printer to a Macintosh, and have it work nicely with postscript (you do have a postscript card in the LJ4, right? Otherwise I think you might need another add-in, possibly DAVE, in order to use HPGL. Macintosh and Unix/Linux are built around postscript printing).

I bet you could go to a second-hand computer store and find an internal jet direct for the LJ 4 for an inexpensive price. New external jet directs are $150 or so. The laserjet 4 was released around the time of 10baseT networks, so if you have to get an ethernet hub, make sure it can do 10 Mbs.

My setup here at home is a LaserJet 4MP with 2 paper trays, and it works fine with OS X 10.2 or better. It is on an internal jet direct, and I print via IP from the Mac and the Linux box, and the Windows box....

Let us know,

Christian

I haven't had any experience with those, but anything is worth a try.
Thanks very much for your help as being a refugee from the PC world I need all I can get. Am enjoying the Mac experience so far.
Bob

Hello Bob,

Welcome to the wonderful world of Macintosh. I have been here since 1989, coming up from the Apple IIe world. Without starting any WAR, your Mac will be a happy place on the internet, and with some cool games, and a lot of stability.

With the LaserJet 4, yeah, first make sure it can print postscript. How can you tell? Turn the printer on, and use the MENU button until you find TEST. Then use the ITEM to find PRINT TEST PAGE. Use the Enter button to print one. Towards the bottom of the page, you will find a section called Personalities, and in there, you are looking for one with PS or perhaps POSTSCRIPT. There will be a series of numbers -- that's the date of the firmware on the Postscript module. If you do not have postscript, you need to find that module.

The neat thing about the jet direct is that it will put the printer on a network, so that other computers can print to it. If you have that PC lying around, and want to print from there, you could set it up. Or, if you would like to try Linux, that can print to the HP too. Matter of fact, if you cannot find a postscript module for that printer, you might have to go through Linux to get the job done.

Good luck with it.

Christian

hi there,
i recently purchased a logilink usb -> centronics/centronix (parallel) printer adapter. despite various websites saying it doesn't work with Mac, i plugged it in and all worked just fine, showing up in my devices as USB 2.0 Printer initially, and then as the name of the printer itself once i connected the Centronics end and turned the printer on. i have OSX 10.6.
hth,
d

My printer is an HP Laserjet 5MP and my computer is a new iMac running OS X version 10.6.4. I just gave up on trying QVS's USB to IEEE-1284 bi-directional adaptor cable (USB Type "A"/Cen36M w/Ferrite). I tried ALL the drivers provided by OS X 10.6 (recently updated). I was able to get several successful printings before it inevitably failed to respond further. Deleting the 5MP from the print queue, rebooting the Mac, and then reinstating the print queue would again allow one or two printings followed by unresponsiveness.

HP-support refuses to discuss the problem and Apple Care knows only that there are drivers included in OS X 10.6. Both seem to wallow in their policies of planned obsolescence and their disdain for users.

It appears that damiannz (Jan 10th, 2010 post) may have found that the logilink adaptor cable works for a similar situation to mine but neither the parallel printer type nor the driver employed were specified.

I would like to know:
1. The details of damiannz's system and
2. Why it appears, based on many user reports, that most of the available USB-to-IEEE1284 adaptor cables don't work for OS X 10.6 while others may.

Thanks for any help you can give. I would especially like to hear from damiannz. My email address is: ljtjr@swbell.net