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From: howard@amdahl.amdahl.com (The Toolmaster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Need to make a few connections
Message-ID: <6534@amdahl.amdahl.com>
Date: Mon, 11-May-87 03:18:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdahl.6534
Posted: Mon May 11 03:18:29 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 13-May-87 00:53:25 EDT
Reply-To: howard@amdahl.UUCP (The Toolmaster)
Distribution: na
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 39
Keywords: Appletalk, async, coax, printing, Laserwriter
Summary: Any ideas on how to tie together Macs, Zenith PCs & a Mainframe

HELP!  In the profound words of that bunch from MacMemory, "...when you have a
problem you want a solution."  I have a problem, maybe the net can help.

I need to know what packaged solutions exist for getting a lot of different
things to print on a Laserwriter.  We have guys with Macs, guys with Zenith
PC clones, and guys on the mainframe that would all like to print to a common
Laserwriter.

The simplest and fastest solution would appear to be run a Phonenet and slot
an Appletalk board into the Zeniths.  I know exactly what this buys the Macs,
and maybe I'm asking the wrong group, but what will this actually buy the
Zeniths.  I guess we're talking TOPS Print as the Zenith based software
but I am unsure exactly what that buys the user.  Anyone know?

Anyway, how do I connect the mainframe.  Fastpath/Ethernet is out for now,
I have full-duplex and 3270 coax-type lines to work with.  I thought maybe
I could setup a Zenith with a coax board and an Appletalk board and let a
mainframe based spooler (lp) use the box as a passthrough to the ATalk net.
Would something like that work?

Anyway, suppose we kill the phonenet; does anyone make a version of the
Laserwriter driver that sends its data out the printer port as regular
async data at say 19.2K baud.  This would be EXTREMELY useful anyway.
In this configuration, I could have the Macs & Zeniths spooling output
up to the host, postscript for the Macs and whatever for the Zeniths.

( By the way, you might wonder why I continually call the clones "Zeniths".
  I believe the term PC means personal computer and I was using it to refer
  to Apple IIs before IBM was even in the game. )

What I would like to avoid is the Mac users having to hold down Command-F
or whatever to generate a postscript file and then upload it in order to
get some printout.  Any ideas and product pointers would be greatly appreciated.
-- 
"Plan for the future because that's where you                Howard C. Simonson
    are going to spend the rest of your life." {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc}!amdahl!howard
         - Mark Twain -

[ The disclaimer for this message may be found in my next article ]