[rescue] the folly of getting a sparcprinter 1 running fro scratch

[Dan Sikorski]

> On Sep 1, 2019, at 1:54 PM, john <jferg977 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Chase,
>
> You need the S-Bus card, and a cable, and NewsPrint and a password and a
Sparcstation which will run SunOS 4.1.3 or 4.1.4 or onje of the very early
Solarises.
>
> The first NewsPrint didn't require a password but was on a QiC tape.  I
suspect that the drive belts on all of QIC tapes have now deformed so as to
make these tapes unusable.  I have a CD for the second version, the passworded
one.  I can't remember if the password was tied to the hostid. I think it was
but you can always spoof a hostid if necessary.
>
> I think but am not sure that it will print courier at 11 points without the
NewsPrint, but not much more.
>
> If I get my ghostscript installation revived I'll share it with you.  Figure
on spending at least a person/week on it if you're fairly sharp with Berkely
or SunOS 4.1.3/4.
>
> You need to keep a clear head.  You can buy  a Canon laser printer for
around $100 which pretty much does everything the SPARC printer does, and you
don't need to keep a sparcstation running to do the rasterizing.
>
> let me know how this looks to you.

Nothing that youbve said is technically incorrect.

However, you may have joined the wrong mailing list.  You can buy a raspberry
pi for $35 that will "pretty much do" everything that the majority of machines
discussed here do.