Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1996 18:42:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu> To: David Moffett <dpm@cs.purdue.edu> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Localtalk PC Card Driver? Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.94.961023183942.12721E-100000@gdi.uoregon.edu> In-Reply-To: <199610230541.AAA26365@ector.cs.purdue.edu>
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On Wed, 23 Oct 1996, David Moffett wrote: > I've stumbled into three or four Apple Localtalk PC Cards made by Apple > in early 1988 (at $2/each I couldn't resist!). I've also stumbled into > an Apple Laserwriter II NTX (alas not at $2) which after a few parts > from The Printer Works (a highly recommended vendor for laser printer > parts, BTW) now seems to generate pages just fine. > > What I'd like (don't sneer!) to do is find a pleasant way to have FreeBSD > (2.1 or higher) speak to the localtalk card sufficiently well to drive > the NTX near the 'normal' localtalk speeds instead of 9600 baud (or > 56kb if one does some silly things to talk to the printer). Am I > just dreaming? Is it worth the potential trouble? Should I junk the > entire thing and get an HP 5M instead (using what for money!)? We had some of these old cards in IBM XTs at my high school. They use DOS drivers and aren't supported under FreeBSD. You're not done for yet -- many network hardware manufacturers (Asante and Dayna for two) have special ethernet-to-appletalk converters for printers. I don't know how much they cost but that should allow you to talk to the printer. Additionally, those adapters have print buffers which can queue print jobs in the device while they're being passed on to the printer at the breakneck speed of 57600. (Isn't LocalTalk great? :-) ) > Thoughts, experiences & wisdom would be appreciated. As would the > switch settings on the Apple cards... Those cards are totally twisted. There was a reason you got them for $2. :-) Did you get the software too? Doug White | University of Oregon Internet: dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu | Residence Networking Assistant http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite | Computer Science Major
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