Serial Port Printers?

[Chesso]

My Fiance is doing an IT Certificate and currently working on Connecting Hardware Perhiperals.

One of the Assignment Questions asks:

Write step-by-step details of how you would install an Apple LaserWriter printer on the first serial port of your computer.

Now we don't use apple products and nor do any of our printers connect via a Serial Port, they all connect through USB. She rang her teacher and also spoke to the head teacher of this particular department and htye both said you have to pretend that your printer is an Apple LaserWriter and pretend it connects via Serial Port as opposed to USB.

But they wouldn't give us any information and even I have no idea how to connect a printer via a Serial Port, Iv'e never had to there all USB now.

Can anyone help? She just needs some basic information on connecting a printer via a Serial Port, wouldn't want to get too technical on them t heir heads might explode (Probably why they won't accept an explanation on using USB).

[Gizmo]

Tell them that the imaginary computer that you are connecting the imaginary LaserWriter to doesn't have an imaginary serial port.

[captaincurran]

tell them you just plug the imaginary serial printer into the imaginary pc and miraculously it detects automatically and installs the imaginary drivers by itself!

[cadaveca]

Postscript?

Originally Posted by http://www.mac512.com/lw.htm

LaserWriter-

Logic Board

• Processor: 68000, 12MHz
• PD Language: Postscript, Diablo 630
• Ports: LocalTalk, Serial

Power

• Max Watts: 760
• Amps: 6.30
• BTU per Hr: 2599.2
• Voltage: 115
• Freq Range: 60 Hz

Memory

• ROM Size: 0.5MB
• Ram Slots: none, n/a
• Min - Max RAM: 1.5MB - 1.5MB
• Min RAM Speed: n/a
• RAM sizes: n/a

Engine

• Pages Per Min: 8
• Max DPI: 300
• Min Life: 300,000

Physical

• Introduced: 3-1-85
• Discontinued: 2-1-88
• Weight (lbs): 77
• Dimensions (in): 11.5H x 18.5W x 16.2D

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Cadaveca

Discontinued: 2-1-88

I don't know about you, Cad, but I know <I> spend a lot of my time hooking up 20-year-old printers to modern computers......

[Chesso]

Obviously much of the course data is way out of date and if my mum would let me i'd ring them up and give them a piece or two of my mind.

[cadaveca]

lol.


that teacher is a riot.

Originally Posted by google

Results 1 - 10 of about 851,000 for apple laserwriter. (0.06 seconds)

my info from #1.

[captaincurran]

it didn't even survive 3 years!

[Áedán]

Originally Posted by Chesso

Now we don't use apple products and nor do any of our printers connect via a Serial Port, they all connect through USB. She rang her teacher and also spoke to the head teacher of this particular department and htye both said you have to pretend that your printer is an Apple LaserWriter and pretend it connects via Serial Port as opposed to USB.

Ugg. Mac serial ports of the day were NOT the same as PC serial ports. PC serial ports are RS232, but Mac serial ports were RS422, which is a completely different type of serial. I seem to remember it was presented on an 8 pin mini-DIN connector too.

[SteveI]

This assignment is typical of some IT course work. Both the instructor and text are so dated that the instructor couldn't function in a professional environment. However, this does nothing in terms of getting a passing grade. Let your fiancee know this will be one of the useless things she needs to learn... right after the final, drink massive quantities of alcohol to "erase" those brain cells for future more productive use.

... In the mean time, the moron/instructor has to be coming from somewhere... have her look through whatever obsolete text the course is based on for clues.

BTW, have her ask her instructor when they will learn to program using punchcards.

[Áedán]

Nah, we've moved from punchcards to JTAG instead now. Upload an opcode to the processor, let it single step the instruction. Wait for CPU to finish processing it. Upload next opcode... Oh, did I say this was all done over a serial link too?

Great for recovering devices that have had their flash overwritten though.

[Favu]

Originally Posted by SteveI

have her ask her instructor when they will learn to program using punchcards.

Guys all this cutting edge tech just doesn't make sense to me...

I mean, I still think the wheel is a pretty neat idea

[Chesso]

Yes if only we unlocked all the mysteries of the wheel before moving on.... lol

[Staz]

So how many 5 1/4" floppies does the driver come on?

[danrok]

That question is just completely daft.

I think even someone who did that 20 years ago would struggle to answer it in detail.

[fantomfreq]

Originally Posted by danrok

That question is just completely daft.

I think even someone who did that 20 years ago would struggle to answer it in detail.

And yet many PC mobos from the last few years still have serial ports.

On a barely related note, when I was cleaning my room the other day I found my first MP3 player, a Diamond Rio. It had 32 MB of built-in memory and a 32 MB memory card (that cost well over $120 at the time) and it interfaced with the computer through a serial port. Imagine trying to fill one of today's HDD-based MP3 players through a serial port!

[Áedán]

Hint: USB - universal SERIAL bus

Serial ports are not necessarily slow, as SERIAL ATA and SERIALLY attached SCSI both prove. Oh, and Fibre channel, but that doesn't have serial in the name.

[Gizmo]

What about Gigabit Ethernet?

[Áedán]

Slow - how about 10 Gigabit ethernet?