Getting Old Printers to Work on New Macs

The saga that has become getting my wife's new computer working is finally over. Yesterday I sat down and figured out how to get all of our printers usable on her new MacBook air. It involved countless Internet searches, none of which helped solve the problem. In fact, one post that I followed created more issues that I had to work around. For anyone who has upgraded from an Intel-based Mac to one of the new Apple silicon Macs, there is one little step that I discovered on my own should you want to use any of your existing printers.

Apple's Migration Assistant did a great job of moving all of my wife's files from her old computer to her new one. It even copied over non-approved programs like printer drivers engineered for the Intel CPUs. The problem surfaces when you try to run them but let's not jump ahead of the story.

My wife needed to print something up last Friday and could not. I did not have time to help her solve the issue at the time and finally got around to looking at it earlier this week. We have 3 printers in the house and she really only uses 2 of them. Neither of them would connect to her new computer. I looked up a number of forums and the best information I had told me to delete the files out of a printer directory. DO NOT DO THAT. I won't repeat where that directory is as that caused an issue I had to remedy, which I will explain at the end of the post.

Nowhere did I find the correct instructions and so I am posting them here. All I needed to do was install Apple's Rosetta 2 software. It allows programs created for the Intel Macs to run on the new Apple M-series CPUs. I discovered this solution when I tried to install printer-driver software. It asked if I wanted to install Rosetta. The first time I said, No. The second time, I gave it a shot. That allowed my Samsung color laser printer to work with my wife's laptop.

Most people will not have a problem with printers unless they are really old like mine. Apple has come up with an all-encompassing printing system packaged with MacOS called AirPrint. There are a huge number of printers supported already. Just not really old ones. Fortunately one of my printers that my wife never uses is on the list and is my Cannon. I connected her computer directly to the printer through a USB cable and it printed without issue.

The last printer I needed to get running is my wife's HP Deskjet 1000 - J110. Apple's Migration Assistant copied over all of the correct driver files but I mistakenly blew them away at the advice of a post I read. Once I figured out I needed to reinstall all the driver files, I looked for them directly from HP. None of the programs I tried worked. I still have the old Mac and so I located all of the files and copied them to the new computer. I used the command-line interface or terminal to do all of the copying and will spare you the details. It involved the "tar" command to create single file that had all of the driver files in their correct directories. Once I copied that single file to the new computer, I used the "tar" command again to install the files in the correct place.

At this point in the process I had to go somewhere and didn't get back to it until yesterday. I thought I had done everything correctly and tried to print something. I immediately got an error message telling me that the MacOS refused to run a program because it couldn't trust the source. I had to use the administrator password to force the computer to run the program. The same thing happened 3 or 4 more times with different programs. Finally I stopped getting error messages but the printer refused to print. At this point I did the only thing that made sense: I rebooted the computer. When the computer came back up, I tried to print a page and it worked. I can now say that my wife's new computer is as usable as the old one before it died.

Should you get a new M-series Mac computer from Apple and want it to work with your old printer, don't do anything other than install Rosetta 2. Your computer will ask if you want to install it and just say, Yes. You don't have to go look for it or do anything special. Then things should work well. If they don't, try a reboot before doing anything else. If that still doesn't work, throw away your old printer and go buy a new one.

Not a Fan of Samsung Laser Printers

Before I thrash on Samsung, I have to point out that I work for Sony and the two companies compete with each other in a number of areas. That means my opinion is not unbiased. Fortunately I am not writing about a product that Sony makes and so I hope this comes across as a bit more objective.

Several years ago I needed a color laser printer. I had gotten tired of using color inkjet printers and wanted to try the laser technology. I shopped around and found a great deal on a Samsung CLP-315W printer. It worked as expected for a while and then the print quality went downhill. I tried cleaning the printer and various other solutions. The one that actually worked was replacing the toner cartridges. Then it started working great again.

I am getting low on toner and so I looked at getting new cartridges. Samsung recommends using only theirs, as you would expect and so I looked all over the Internet to get name-brand replacement cartridges. I found some on Amazon and ordered them. It surprised me when they shipped out of the UK but I waited patiently for them to arrive. They showed up a week later and I immediately loaded them into the printer. They didn't work at all.

Any time something doesn't work on the first try, I do a bit of Internet searching and make sure it is not a user error. I found a number of articles that talk about resetting the page counter. I thought that might be necessary and then I discovered how to get the page count via the printer's web interface. I just had to know the IP address of my printer and point my browser at it. The page counter showed me that each of the cartridges had no pages printed but also that the cartridges didn't have any toner. After playing around with the printer for a week, I decided to send the cartridges back.

Amazon is a great place to order stuff because of their return policy. The catch is if they send you something from abroad. In order to get my refund, I had to ship them back to the UK and was only allotted  $20 for shipping. While Amazon may be able to ship overseas for that price, it cost me significantly more than that. While I will get some of my money back, I am out $60 because of shipping costs to return the defective toner cartridges. I have learned my lesson with Amazon and will not order anything from overseas ever again. I am actually going to cut back what I order from them because of this experience.

So now I am stuck with a laser printer that either needs to be replaced or I need to find replacement cartridges for it. My gut feel is to take to the top of a really tall cliff and watch it explode after I throw it off the top. Unfortunately the responsible person in me doesn't want to have to find the million little pieces it will become as leaving any of them is littering. E-wasting the printer is probably more socially responsible.

I could also try off-brand cartridges but am not sure that is the right choice as I have not had great luck with them. My experience is that they work for about half the life of the cartridge and then the print quality starts suffering. I really would like to get the full life out of whatever I purchase.

Ultimately I am thinking of finding another brand of printer that doesn't have nearly as many problems as I have had with my Samsung. I have always had great luck with Hewlett Packard printers and may pay the premium for their product. At least I know their printers work when you replace their toner cartridges.