Printer for the X1000

AmigaOne X1000 platform specific issues.
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musa
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Printer for the X1000

Post by musa »

I currently have no printer on my Amiga X1000. I am interested in hearing what printer solutions others have chosen for their X1000.
Thank you in advance for your help
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by nbache »

musa wrote:I currently have no printer on my Amiga X1000. I am interested in hearing what printer solutions others have chosen for their X1000.
Thank you in advance for your help
I use an HP Color LaserJet CP3525n. This is a network printer and is set up as such, i.e. it has its own IP address in our home LAN (which is quite practical because it can be used from all our computers, including all my Amigas and my wife's home and work PCs and my own work PC). From the Amigas I use the Workbench PostScript printer support, together with lpr.device in RAW mode to send the PS to the printer.

Works nicely for me.

Best regards,

Niels
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ChrisH
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by ChrisH »

I use an *ancient* HP LaserJet 6P (it has a centronics *parallel* port!), connected via a parallel-to-USB adaptor I got from AmigaKit. This actually works better on OS4 than Windows (which keeps picking different virtual USB port numbers). AmigaOS4 comes with a HP_LaserJet_6 printer driver, and all I had to do was tell OS4 to use the "usbprinter.device" port device.

My understanding (which may not be entirely accurate) is that the best printers are either old ones (which have drivers available), or more expensive modern ones that support network printing. You may find that TurboPrint (I assume still available to buy) has drivers for more modern printers, but never used it myself on OS4 yet.
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musa
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by musa »

nbache wrote:
musa wrote:I currently have no printer on my Amiga X1000. I am interested in hearing what printer solutions others have chosen for their X1000.
Thank you in advance for your help
I use an HP Color LaserJet CP3525n. This is a network printer and is set up as such, i.e. it has its own IP address in our home LAN (which is quite practical because it can be used from all our computers, including all my Amigas and my wife's home and work PCs and my own work PC). From the Amigas I use the Workbench PostScript printer support, together with lpr.device in RAW mode to send the PS to the printer.

Works nicely for me.

Best regards,

Niels
Hi Niels
Very interesting. however, there is something I do not understand. I do not have a lpr.device and how and where do you tell the system that it should be looking for a network printer with ip ???.???.???.??? on your local network. I have a Brother MFC 540CN networked printer/scanner which I use on my local network. Would it be possible to do the same as you on your networked printer?
Thanks for your help
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musa
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by musa »

ChrisH wrote:I use an *ancient* HP LaserJet 6P (it has a centronics *parallel* port!), connected via a parallel-to-USB adaptor I got from AmigaKit. This actually works better on OS4 than Windows (which keeps picking different virtual USB port numbers). AmigaOS4 comes with a HP_LaserJet_6 printer driver, and all I had to do was tell OS4 to use the "usbprinter.device" port device.

My understanding (which may not be entirely accurate) is that the best printers are either old ones (which have drivers available), or more expensive modern ones that support network printing. You may find that TurboPrint (I assume still available to buy) has drivers for more modern printers, but never used it myself on OS4 yet.
Thanks for your answer
Do you think that all network printers should be able to work on OS4?
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by ChrisH »

musa wrote:Do you think that all network printers should be able to work on OS4?
TBH, not a clue. I think people have discussed these issues in more detail on other web sites (either www.amigans.net or amigaworld.net) but I can't recall the details.

At the very least I think some network printers will be more difficult to get working than others, and it is possible some may not work at all. I think there are certain things you need to look for on the spec sheet.
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by mbrantley »

Here's lpr.device on the Depot...

http://os4depot.net/index.php?function= ... pr_dev.lha

I have a black-and-white laser printer that's on the network and supports Postscript printing from my OS4 machines. Output from Final Writer is great. The printer is a Brother HL-5370DW.
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by daz »

musa wrote:I currently have no printer on my Amiga X1000. I am interested in hearing what printer solutions others have chosen for their X1000.
Thank you in advance for your help
I have a couple of Canon Inkjets that I use, at the moment I have an iP4200 attached, via USB. I also have a S600 which normally lives with my Classic.

I use this driver that I wrote:
http://os4depot.net/index.php?function= ... ons600.lha

which works at densities 1 and 2. (...must get round to updating it)

There are a lot of HP drivers suppiled with the OS that I believe work well.

Hope this helps.
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by nbache »

musa wrote:Very interesting. however, there is something I do not understand. I do not have a lpr.device and how and where do you tell the system that it should be looking for a network printer with ip ???.???.???.??? on your local network.
mbrantley already pointed you to lpr.device on OS4Depot in another reply. As for how to configure it, it's actually very easy. I just created a text file called lpr.device in ENVARC: with the following contents:

HOST=192.168.1.7 RAW

- where of course 192.168.1.7 is the IP address I assigned to my printer on the LAN. The doc file in the archive explains all you need to know.

Apart from this - which forwards your printer-ready output (in this case Postscript) to your printer over the network - you of course also need to set up Prefs/Printer to use Postscript as printer driver and lpr.device as port device, and also set up Prefs/PrinterPS to your liking (for paper size etc.).

That should more or less be it. The doc file also mentions some modifications to your NSDPatch.cfg file, but they shouldn't be necessary when you explicitly specify lpr.device as port device in Prefs/Printer. At least, I haven't made them on my X1000, and it works.

Best regards,

Niels
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musa
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Re: Printer for the X1000

Post by musa »

Thanks to all for input and advice.
@ Niels I followed your instructions and have come so far to my network printer says receiving data. However, nothing happens so I suppose that the printer can not translate the data. I think I will look for a newer network printer.
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