Image Writer Hacks

Playing around old Apple Image Writer printer and appletalk.

Disclaimer

This code doesn't work for now (and it's not likely to change anytime soon).

However this project does contain some interesting parts, mainly the goodies/ directory, the modified version of bin/pap/pap.c (disable checks that make pap fail on image writer) and bin/pap/papstatus.c (return human readable string and not an ugly binary code), and this general documentation.

Description

This repository contains the necessary stuff to access and print on an Apple Image Writer through appletalk.

Acknowledge

This repository is derived from the netatalk project.

License

This work is licensed under the GPLv2

How to use

Hardware requirements

• An Apple Image Writer with it's localtalk addon card
• The localtalk adapter and cables
• A Localtalk <-> Ethertalk adapter (Asantetalk adapter for example)
• A Linux PC running Cups

Compiling the tools

Dependencies:

• libacl
• cmake

Building:

cmake .
make

Generated binaries:

• iwh-atalkd: daemon managing name, registration and routing on the appletalk network
• iwh-nbplkup: utility scanning the appletalk network for available devices
• iwh-papstatus: utility displaying a printer status
• iwh-pap: utility sending stuff for the printer to print

Setting up the appletalk network

Enable appletalk module in Linux kernel:

modprobe appletalk

Change configuration:

vim conf/atalkd.conf

Start iwh-atalkd:

./iwh-atalkd -f conf/atalkd.conf

Scan the network:

./iwh-nbplkup

It should display your printer name.

Get printer status:

./iwh-papstatus -p "<printer name>:ImageWriter"

Configuring cups

Put goodies/cups-backend/pap in /usr/lib/cups/backend (or the appropriate cups backend dir on your system).

Create a printer in cups with the following uri:

• pap:// (replace spaces with %20)

If the image writer ppd is not provided, use the ppd file in directory goodies/