[X Newbies] HP Laserjet 4M not working under 10.2.2

[Carl Falb]

At 10:40 AM -0600 on 12/18/02, Michael Winter wrote:

>On Wednesday, December 18, 2002, at 10:03  AM, Web wrote:
>
>>My HP Laserjet 4M is not working anymore under OS 10.2.2 on my 
>>powerbook G4. I used it before with 10.2 and 10.2.1 through Gimp 
>>print, but now it stopped..
>
>We have the same printer here. I've never needed to use Gimp print 
>to use it, but I did have a lot of trouble that sounds similar to 
>what you're experiencing, until I downloaded the newest driver and 
>PPD for it from the HP web site. Have you checked to see if there's 
>anything newer on the HP web site?
>
>I should note that I do have both Gimp print and Ghostscript 
>installed, just not in use for that particular printer. Also, this 
>printer is connected to the ethernet network via an AsantePrint 
>adapter.
>

I have had the same problems with my 4M, (also connected with 
AsantePrint from my G4/400,) especially printing files with lots of 
data such as large .pdf files and web pages. I begin to think it is a 
memory issue with the printer, but have no proof. But the same 
sequence of events: appears in Print Center, light flashes on 
printer, then "poof" it's gone and nothing printed. I couldn't get 
the HP drivers installed with 10.2.2 to work consistently, and the 
most recent updater from HP is more than a year old, so I am not 
optimistic.

I find printing in OSX rather mysterious. There's CUPS and Gimp-Print 
and GhostScript (all loaded on my machine) and other Unix and GNU 
stuff. The drivers that seem to work best for me are "hpijs and 
foomatic" drivers, but I don't know where I got them. But even they 
aren't perfect because non-black elements of web and .pdf pages are 
printed in tones of gray, making it difficult to read or see. It's 
like the driver is trying to print to an inkjet machine.

This is one of the reasons I return to OS9 again and again. Indeed, 
to get some of the files to print correctly, I save it as a .pdf file 
in OSX, open Acrobat Reader 4.0.5 in Classic, and print it the "old 
fashioned" way.

I see lots of traffic about printing problems in OSX. People seem to 
relate them to the printers they are using, but one common theme is 
"it looks like it is going to print, but it doesn't." I think it has 
to do with OSX, but what do I know?

-Carl


The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, 
and the pessimist fears that this is true. - James Branch Cabell