Outdated Peripherals

[Foxbat]

I finally was forced to take action after my recent MacBook with Apple Silicon purchase. I was trying to print Christmas card labels with the new Mac to my old HP LaserJet that we’ve had for at least a dozen years, but each time I would try to print, the Print Spooler reported a “Filter” error. I tried several different tricks, thinking the margins were bad, but when I finally looked at the Spooler log, I saw the issue: Bad CPU.

I remember us running into something like this at work when some of the older LaserJet models didn’t have 64-bit Drivers when we moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Win10. Here, I am using Apple’s Sonoma macOS drivers, which one would assume would be Apple Silicon capable. Going to HP Printer Support, this CP1518 has macOS support up to 10.12 and my MacBook Pro is macOS 14.2, so no using the latest HP drivers.

It’s really a shame, this HP printer has a lot of pages left to print, but I guess a dozen years is pretty good for a piece of Tech. Hopefully, the replacement Canon color laser printer I bought to replace it has a good, long life as well.

Oh, and the Christmas cards did get into the mail, I just had to print using the Intel-based Mac Mini (also running Sonoma). Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t replace it with a new iMac…

 

[dishdude]

Did you try connecting it using the parallel port?

 

[Foxbat]

Did you try connecting it using the parallel port?

Even if I could, it was a driver issue, so I’d still be hand-writing envelopes…

That reminds me, I think we can finally throw out the DB-25 to Centronix parallel printer cables we have in a drawer at work. Although someone has PLC programmer software that requires (wait for it) MS-DOS. The best we can offer is PC-DOS v7 from IBM (we have ten boxes of 3.5” floppies).

 

[TRG]

Even if I could, it was a driver issue, so I’d still be hand-writing envelopes…

That reminds me, I think we can finally throw out the DB-25 to Centronix parallel printer cables we have in a drawer at work. Although someone has PLC programmer software that requires (wait for it) MS-DOS. The best we can offer is PC-DOS v7 from IBM (we have ten boxes of 3.5” floppies).

I came across a box of unopen 3.5 inch disks the other day. But that's not all. I also found a stack of Iomega 100 mb Zip disks and a parallel port drive.

 

[TheKrell]

I also found a stack of Iomega 100 mb disks and a parallel port drive.

IIRC my first Iomega drive used the floppy disk ribbon cable. Then it was IDE. Finally I still have a SCSI version around here somewhere.

 

[FTA4PA]

I have an Iomega Ditto tape drive and tapes hiding in a bin somewhere around here. I wonder if they still work?

 

[TheKrell]

I have an Iomega Ditto tape drive and tapes hiding in a bin somewhere around here. I wonder if they still work?

Ah, yes. Back in W95 days I had one of those as well. Maybe that was the one that used a floppy controller and cable...

 

[FTA4PA]

Ah, yes. Back in W95 days I had one of those as well. Maybe that was the one that used a floppy controller and cable...

You are right. There were two versions, internal and external. Mine was external.

From Wikipedia:

Ditto internal drives were connected through the floppy drive channel and used MFM encoding to store data (the same method as on older floppy drives). An ISA accelerator card called the Ditto Dash, providing higher speed than a stock floppy controller, was also available.

Ditto external drives were connected to the parallel port and offered a print-through port which allowed a printer to operate while daisy-chained to the Ditto drive. This is a feature also commonly found on an Iomega ZIP drive. Usage of the parallel port allowed for transfer speeds (in EPP mode) of a maximum 1 MB/s.

 

[navychop]

You guys are worse than ME!

Oh, wait…..

 

[TheKrell]

Ditto external drives were connected to the parallel port

Oh wow. Surprisingly enough, I don't remember ever using the printer port for other than a printer. Maybe for a scanner?

 

[FTA4PA]

Oh wow. Surprisingly enough, I don't remember ever using the printer port for other than a printer. Maybe for a scanner?

Yep, did that too and I have a parallel port scanner hiding around here somewhere - time to do some sorting I guess!

 

[Juan]

Even if I could, it was a driver issue, so I’d still be hand-writing envelopes…

That reminds me, I think we can finally throw out the DB-25 to Centronix parallel printer cables we have in a drawer at work. Although someone has PLC programmer software that requires (wait for it) MS-DOS. The best we can offer is PC-DOS v7 from IBM (we have ten boxes of 3.5” floppies).

You could have set up a virtual machine

I finally was forced to take action after my recent MacBook with Apple Silicon purchase. I was trying to print Christmas card labels with the new Mac to my old HP LaserJet that we’ve had for at least a dozen years, but each time I would try to print, the Print Spooler reported a “Filter” error. I tried several different tricks, thinking the margins were bad, but when I finally looked at the Spooler log, I saw the issue: Bad CPU.

I remember us running into something like this at work when some of the older LaserJet models didn’t have 64-bit Drivers when we moved from Windows XP to Windows 7 and Win10. Here, I am using Apple’s Sonoma macOS drivers, which one would assume would be Apple Silicon capable. Going to HP Printer Support, this CP1518 has macOS support up to 10.12 and my MacBook Pro is macOS 14.2, so no using the latest HP drivers.

It’s really a shame, this HP printer has a lot of pages left to print, but I guess a dozen years is pretty good for a piece of Tech. Hopefully, the replacement Canon color laser printer I bought to replace it has a good, long life as well.

Oh, and the Christmas cards did get into the mail, I just had to print using the Intel-based Mac Mini (also running Sonoma). Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t replace it with a new iMac…

You could have tried a virtual machine on older software...maybe