paulrickards, 15 days ago

In the interest of science, I did an ImageWriter II comparison print of CUPS vs the MacPalette driver for Classic. I think MacPalette wins here. There appears to be better color range and the text is a little sharper.

#RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #LiveLaughLocalTalk #ImageWriterII

A black and white dot matrix print of iOS maps showing the Apple Campus. The print is a little lighter and crisper. Done with the MacPalette II driver on Classic.

paulrickards, 15 days ago

I lifted some halftone settings and stuffed them into the ImageWriter II foomatic PPD and did some test strip prints.

At both resolutions, the result seems to be the same? So maybe that’s not the setting I need. Maybe it can’t be changed? MacPalette II still wins here!

#RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #ImageWriterII

A test strip print of the same image four times with CUPS at 160x144 DPI on an ImageWriter II. Each image is one of four different halftone settings. The result is darker than the first but each of the four images largely the same.
A test strip print of the same image with MacPalette II at “best” quality on an ImageWriter II. The result is better than the first two.
The original test image, a portion of the lack and white photo of Margaret Hamilton smiling standing next to a stack of code.

paulrickards, 15 days ago

The way it works is this:

1. A print is initiated from a device to the CUPS-PDF driver on my #netatalk Raspberry Pi.
2. The resulting PDF is placed in the AFP share of netatalk/afpd.
3. An emulated PPC Mac 9.2.2 running the #AppleScript below is watching for new files in that folder and will print them using Acrobat Reader to the #ImageWriterII via #LocalTalk using the MacPalette II driver.

It works, but crashes with dialog that I can't auto-dismiss.

#RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac

paulrickards, 14 days ago

Ok, so this centipede printer workflow isn’t really reliable so I dove into CUPS to try and see if there’s a way to alter the dithering.

I tried adding different settings to the PPD file but nothing produced any changes.

Until I added “DitherPPI” (a GS option) and it produced a result that was pretty good! I tried various values (30, 80, 120, 180) but they all looked identical. In any case, this is good enough for me!

#ImageWriterii #RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #netatalk

paulrickards, 9 days ago

I was able to tweak the output of the ImageWriter II prints from CUPS to be slightly better. I've updated the blog post.

https://biosrhythm.com/?p=2791

#RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #ImageWriterII

paulrickards, 9 days ago

This animation shows the simulated output of CUPS ImageWriter II DitherPPI setting approximately from 2 to 31. After that, it changes to a more posterized dither and is the same for any larger value. You can see the dithering dots start very large and shrink down with each new value.

#RetroComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #ImageWriterII

An animation showing subsequent values for the DitherPPI setting inside the CUPS iwhi PPD. The video starts as large halftone dots that slowly get smaller, eventually being clear enough to see that it's Margaret Hamilton.

paulrickards, 11 months ago

After a few tries I was able to fully print from Quark XPress to the ImageWriter II over #AppleTalk with the #AirTalk from the #PocketChip! It wasn’t quick but it worked!

#RetroComputing #VintageComputing #VintageApple #VintageMac #MiniVac #ImageWriterII #QuarkXPress

A closeup of the PocketChip showing a document in Quark XPress using the Mini VMac emulator sitting on top of an ImageWriter II printer. The document on the screen says Hello from the PocketChip with a picture of the ResEdit icon.

paulrickards, 11 months ago

Now I’ll know which #ImageWriterII has the #LocalTalk card installed. 🙃#LiveLaughLocalTalk

Front left corner of an ImageWriter II with a sticker next to the Apple logo that says Live, Laugh, LocalTalk.