will a PNC1100 connect via usb to a G4 mac?

[J. Hulme]

Don’t know the plotter, but a USB on the mac to parallel on the plotter may not work with the cable you can buy as most are for PC and use a driver included to convert the bus.

You can run virtual PC on the mac, load windows use windows software and use the cable (afaik) just done the same on one of our macs, unfortunately this way it eats memory, signlab won’t work it crashes the mac 😉 (but does it ever?) flexi does though, not plugged the cable into a plotter as yet, this way we can use the mac on a windows network so we can view layouts on the shop floor instead of printing and using a mac this way just saves leaving expensive laptops lying about with the added bonus of ..well…having a mac .
If you use the win software/ mac / cable route give the g4 lots of memory you should be fine, this I assume is why signlab crashes due to around only 50 mb ram available from 128mb after its been swallowed up with running both the mac os and the win os at the same time.

[Mike Antrum]

Hi,

I have found the following solution to work:

You need:

Keyspan USB/Serial Converter box (or internal card)

Mac Plotter Serial Cable

Flexicut software

Flexicut costs £ 199.00 + VAT, The external Keyspan box about £ 85.00 + VAT, and the serial cable £ 20.00 + VAT.

Of course the bigger versions of Flexi work too. It is important the you use the Keyspan converter, as the flexi software specifically recoegnises it.

Alternatively you could try using a TCP/IP print server – connect it via the network port, program an suitable IP address. You would then need suitable software (flexicut again) than can cut to an IP address.#

A decent print server costs £ 110.00 + VAT (approx) so it’s as broad as it’s long really.

Hope this helps,

Mike Antrum

[teepee]

you will need a Keyspan USB to Serial Adapter – works with OS10

Or use a Belkin USB to Serial Adapter – only works with Mac OS 9 and below

Get the Keyspan from Mac Warehouse or any Mac Specialists – about £49

Tony

[John Childs]

My vote goes with Keyspan too.

We use them on iMacs to drive Summa and Roland plotters.