PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II & portable printer models?

manitoba wrote:

 > I have a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II (read: Macintosh ADB and Serial Ports,
 > and IrDA).
 > Just wondering if there are any portable printers currently on the market
 > that would hook up to this PowerBook G3 serial port or be compatible with
 > the IrDA port, and if so, what brands/models?

A PowerPrint (Mac serial->Parallel) cable would allow you to connect to
most any parallel-port portable printer (Canon, Brother, HP).

The HP Deskwriter 300 series will work in serial mode, and the HP DJ 300
series with IrDa adapter will work with IrDA.

Otherwise, a USB PC Card would allow you to connect to newer USB
printers. (mainly Canon for portable printing).

 > Also, what were the models of Apple's inkjet printers that were designed
 > to be portable (I believe they had black plastic cases, and were smaller
 > than the usual platinum colored desktop StyleWriter series of printers)?

The Portable Stylewriter was simply a Canon BC-01 printer with an
included Mac Serial-Parallel adapter.

I'd suggest the USB route: multi-function, a good upgrade, and the
ability to use the Canon BJC-85.

good luck!
GTr
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<< I have a PowerBook G3 Wallstreet II (read: Macintosh ADB and Serial Ports,
and IrDA). >>

Manitoba-

I have the old Apple Color StyleWriter 2200, which printed well except for
extremely poor paper feed. It degraded to the point where it won't feed at
all. The CSW 2200 only prints through the Mac serial printer ports, so would be
of no use with newer Macs. (The older type of ink fades more quickly than ink
from recent models. One week in the sun will ruin it.)

I also got the Canon NK-300 battery adapter kit which worked well with the CSW
2200.

Later I got the HP Portable Deskjet 340 plus the Macintosh interface kit. The
printer prints OK but the drivers are buggy. The color ink cartridge doesn't
have black, so it mixes the three primary colors to make it. It uses an
adapter to connect the Mac serial ports to the printer's parallel connector,
although the literature claims it is actually a serial connection. I guess it
uses the parallel port's handshake lines in a serial mode.

I got the version with the IrDA kit which plugs into the parallel port. HP
never fixed the Mac driver to work with IrDA. (I should check to see if OS X
has built-in drivers that might work.)

Then I got the Canon BJC-85 that has the same form factor and uses the same
battery adapter, ink cartridges and tanks as the CSW 2200. It shows traces of
a paper feed problem but is OK most of the time. It has parallel, USB and IrDA
capabiltiy. I never tried it with the Wallstreet, so don't know how the IR
works. I also have a PCMCIA adapter that provides two USB ports for the
Wallstreet, but never tried printing with that either.

Within the past month, I purchased the HP Deskjet 450 and am still getting to
know it. I successfully made a test print via IrDA from the Wallstreet running
OS 9.2.2, but I seem to recall not being able to do it under OS 10.2.8. It
seems that AppleTalk is required, but is not an option when using IrDA under OS
X.

I would recommend the HP DJ 450 over any of the others, but expect use of a USB
adapter would produce best results with the Wallstreet. The printer has more
options if you count BlueTooth, as well as the ability to plug in your camera's
Compact Flash module and print without using your computer at all. In
addition, it uses ink cartridges that are commonly used by several other HP
models.

Fred
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