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Old NEC Printer on Win2k?

Posted by Cliff on from the I-thought-this-wasn't-supposed-to-happen-with-2k dept.

Ravagin asks: "I am deeply in love with my Dell Inspiron 8100 running Windows 2000. I have a perfectly good NEC Silentwriter SuperScript 610Plus that I want to use; however, NEC's support site has nothing for Windows 2000 (the 610plus win95/98 drivers return a Windows version error). It's supposed to be HP LaserJet IIP compatible, but I've had no luck getting that to work. Google hasn't helped, either. Does anyone have any useful experience or sites for getting this old, 'unsupported' printer to play nice with Win2k?"

5 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Laser Jet IIP by duffbeer703 · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can use LaserJet IIP drivers, which use PCL 3 i believe. The only problem is, it will only print at 300dpi.

    I have a Xerox printer with the same problem. Your printer and mine use a proprietary rendering system called Adobe PrintGear to control the printer, this system was used in a number of cheap laser printers.

    There is no way around this, since Adobe no longer supports it and the vendors who developed the drivers have no knowledge of it.

    --
    Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
  2. Jumper by JMZero · · Score: 2, Informative

    I had an old SilentWriter (huge beast, great because it had a never-ending toner cartridge, it was huge).

    I had to change a jumper or dip (can't remember) on the back to switch it to LaserJet II mode.

    -Dave

    --
    Let's not stir that bag of worms...
  3. Try www.linuxprinting.org... by cnvogel · · Score: 2, Informative

    I understand that "linuxprinting" does not
    sound like "How can I print in Windows" but
    this page gives you the details you need to know
    when you try to use it with a different or more
    generic driver.

    If queried about your printer, linuxprinting says:

    --> Traditional "GDI" printer;

    so you are dependant on drivers you get from
    the vendor. Therefore the printer has been sorted into the category "Paperweight".....

  4. Just about every printer made... by iforgotmyfirstlogon · · Score: 3, Informative

    ... will work with an HP LaserJet 4 or 4m driver. I used to run into a lot of "unsupported printer" issues back when I was a Citrix admin. You can't make calls to fancy duplexing units or anything like that, but every printer I've personally tried could be made to print with that driver.

    Another thought -- Set up an NT4.0 print server to handle it. We have some of them around here for precisely that reason.

    - Freed

    --
    "Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and sweet as love." -Turkish Proverb
  5. Same printer. No solution. by sheath · · Score: 3, Informative

    First: You're kind of screwed. I have the exact same printer, and it just doesn't work in Windows 2000. Unless there are two models of this floating around, it's a dumb printer: no on-board processor, and the only RAM is a buffer to print the next bit of the page. The 'Windows Driver' is actually the entire print engine, which tells the printer exactly what to print where. Your computer does all the rendering. (The advantage to this was that, when I upgraded from a 486 to a P133, my printer got faster... :-)

    In order to use it with Win2K (and Linux), I bought a $50 P133, installed Win95, and set that machine up as a Print Server. The SuperScript drivers allow you to print PostScript, but I just sent PCL5 at the box, and it worked well. It was fun using a Win95 machine as a front-end to my printer so I could print from Linux. That's about your only bet at this point.

    Second: These questions really don't belong on Slashdot. Please quit posting them.

    --

    ---sheath