Printing from MAC to SUN

[David Brainard]

I don't know what the current TOPS offerings are, but there is a product
called KSPOOL (made by Kinetics) that allows this. We use KSPOOL to print
from the MAC to a LaserWriter attatched by a serial line to a SUN.
KSPOOL's primary purpose in life is to let SUNs print to LaserWriters that
are attatched to MACs, but it also works the other way.  KSPOOL is
compatible with TOPS, which we also run.  We are using a Kinetics
EtherPort II card as our interface to the wire, but as I understand it the
stuff will all work if you connect your Appletalk network to the wire
through a Kinetics Fastpath box.

Although the software was a little tricky to install, the only serious
problem we have encountered is that the symbol font does not print
correctly for some of its characters.  I think the problem has to do with
the way Kinetics emulates the PostScript Dictionary that the MAC assumes
is loaded into the LaserWriter.  Kinetics claims it works fine for them,
but haven't been much help for us.  (To calibrate your judgment about
whether this is because I am incompetent, I note that the Kinetics tech
support people once referred one of their customers to me for help
installing KSPOOL because they felt I knew more about it than they did.)
Also, we had to use version 5.1 of the LaserPrep files, as neither
versions 5.0 or 5.2 would work right with the Kinetics software.  Perhaps
they have fixed one or both of these problems by now, I've put off
worrying about for a while.

Kinetics's phone number is (415) 947-0998.

David Brainard
brainard at white.stanford.edu