Using Older Peripherals with Newer Macs

Using Older Peripherals with Newer Macs

• Hardware Adapters
• Virtualization
• Networked Devices & Sharing

A recurring issue that users of all platforms face is how to use older peripherals with newer computers. Printers, scanners, hard drives, and various specialty equipment have long life spans and often remain in use longer than the computers they were originally used with. But as operating systems evolve and new computers lose ports and hardware interfaces they once had, continuing to use those peripherals can present challenges.

Hardware Adapters

On the Mac hardware front, there are several ways to tackle the problem. USB adapters are available for a wide variety of legacy connectors, including ADB, serial (DIN-8 and DB-9), PS/2, and parallel ports (which can be useful with Macs - see below). These types of adapters are particularly useful for printers and input devices (keyboards, mice, tablets, etc.).

Expansion cards are another popular option. Desktop Macs with PCI slots (PCI, PCI-X, or PCIe) and laptops with expansion card slots (PC Card for PowerBooks, ExpressCard for MacBook Pros) have options to add USB, FireWire, SCSI, IDE/ATA, serial ports (RS-422), etc. Manufacturers of USB adapters and expansion cards include Keyspan, Belkin, and Griffin, among others.

If you're lucky, just having the expansion card or adapter with the right connector for your legacy device will be enough - the drive will mount on the desktop, the printer can be added as a USB device, etc. For example, you can use ADB mice and keyboards via the Griffin iMate adapter, just plug and play.

More often than not, however - particularly with devices more than a few years old - additional software is required that may not be compatible with your current operating system. Old printer and scanner drivers, software for the expansion card or adapter itself, and even some USB devices may only work in Mac OS 9 or earlier.

Another solution is required.

Virtualization

To bridge the Operating System Gap, you can use virtualization to run old hardware and drivers on newer systems. Virtualization is the practice of running a "guest" operating system inside a host operating system: The host OS runs the computer, and the guest or virtualized OS runs as a process, fooling the older software into thinking it's running on an actual computer. The older peripheral runs inside the virtual machine, which will have a mechanism to share data with the host OS.

On PowerPC Macs, examples of virtualization include running Mac OS 9 in Classic Mode within Mac OS X and running Windows within VirtualPC. On Intel Macs, Parallels and VMWare can run Windows side by side with Mac OS X, and SheepShaver provides the ability to run Mac OS 9 on current machines (with some limitations).

To illustrate how virtualization can help, and the challenges of getting it to work, consider the tale of an inkjet printer: I have a Primera Signature II CD printer, which is an old professional workhorse. It's slow but reliable, and I can still get ink from the manufacturer. The printer includes a Mac DIN-8 serial port and a PC parallel port, and it has drivers for Mac OS 9 and Windows 98/2K. With the printer I use a label database created in FileMaker Pro v4 (Mac and Win compatible) that contains templates with my business logo and fields for disc content information.

The printer was originally used in a commercial recording studio. After several upgrades to faster CD printers, the old Sig II got relegated to a shelf in the basement. I claimed it during a subsequent equipment purge - "take it now or it's trash" - and decided to put it to use in my home office.

Using Classic Mode on PowerPC Macs

By the time the printer was ready for it's second career at my home, Mac OS X was the current Operating System, and I was running 10.3.9 on a Power Mac G4 that didn't have DIN-8 serial ports. I decided to try using Classic Mode with a USB-to-Serial adapter.

I already had Classic running on my Power Mac, so the first step was to install the Mac OS 9 printer drivers for the Primera; nothing more complicated here than running the installer. In order to provide a DIN-8 serial port, I purchased a Keyspan USA28X USB Twin Serial Adapter. This adapter was released back in the Classic Mac OS days and is still supported in Mac OS X, with drivers for both operating systems.

One problem with sharing USB devices in a virtualized setting is that both operating systems may try to claim the device simultaneously - this was a big problem in early versions of Mac OS X with Classic. Since the Keyspan adapter requires drivers to work correctly in both operating systems, I avoided the problem by only installing the OS 9 drivers in Classic and skipping the OS X installation. The final step was to install FileMaker Pro v4 into Classic and copy my label template database.

To print a CD I would start Classic first, then turn on the printer and plug it the Keyspan USB adapter; I found that to be the most reliable way to connect the printer. Once connected, go to Chooser, select the Primera, and choose which serial port is being used on the adapter (#1 or #2). As with all printer changes in Mac OS 9, you then have to visit Page Setup... in FileMaker Pro (or your current app) to ensure that page format settings are correct.

This worked beautifully, and I used this setup for several years, eventually swapping the Power Mac G4 for a Power Mac G5 and upgrading from Mac OS X 10.3.x to 10.4.x.

All was well in the world (at least on this front) until I bought an Intel-based Mac Pro earlier this summer.

Using SheepShaver on Intel Macs

Apple's switch to Intel-based Macs has been a major success, but one drawback for longtime Mac users is their inability run Mac OS 9 in Classic mode. My printing solution was no longer viable.

I could have kept the Primera connected to a PowerPC Mac running Classic - or even one booted into Mac OS 9, since I have dozens of old Macs around as part of my Vintage Mac Museum - but that's less convenient then having the printer connected to my primary machine. I decided to try SheepShaver, an open source project that runs Mac OS 9 (and Mac OS 8) on Intel Macs.

SheepShaver requires a Mac OS ROM file and a CD installer for Mac OS 9.0.x to get started (the program does not support 9.1 or 9.2 due to conflicts with virtual memory). These may be trivial or significant hurdles, depending on what items you have on hand. It took me about two days to get SheepShaver working on my system, and I have more experience and old software lying around than the average user.

I had a Mac OS 9.0 install CD handy, but extracting a Mac OS ROM from several of my older Macs per the documentation was unsuccessful; the extracted files were not recognized by SheepShaver. After a bit of Googling I learned that the Mac OS 8.6 install CD contained a "Mac OS ROM" file that would work, and I had this disc handy.

I created a SheepShaver disk image file and installed Mac OS 9.0. I next wanted to run the 9.0.4 updater, but first had to figure out how to get the installer onto the OS 9 disk image (the program runs in a window with a virtual disk image, unlike Classic which shares the screen and primary drive with Mac OS X). SheepShaver creates a "UNIX" drive on the OS 9 desktop linked to the OS X file system, but I found that to be flaky and often unable to copy files. After more trial and error I found that I could mount AppleShare volumes by IP address and use the network drive as a transfer medium. FTP and Web access also worked.

After the 9.0.4 update, I installed the Primera printer driver, the Keyspan USB adapter driver for Mac OS 9, and FileMaker Pro 4. I rebooted, opened my label database, went to Chooser and . . . no luck. The Sig II was listed and selectable, but no serial ports were available to choose from. A bit more investigation revealed that emulation of the serial port is as-yet unavailable in the Mac version of SheepShaver; currently only the Linux version appears to support serial ports.

The USB adapter was probably working, but it emulates another port which does not. Stymied. SheepShaver is able to access networked TCP/IP printers (lasers and the like), so I was able to use the Apple Desktop Printer Utility to create a desktop printer for my networked HP LaserJet (create an LPR printer and add by IP address). However, this didn't help with my CD printing needs.

Hopefully SheepShaver will evolve into a capable replacement for Classic on Intel Macs, but at the moment it has several major limitations. Just for kicks, however, I made a second disk image and installed Mac OS 8.6 on that one - Mac OS 8 running on Intel, who'da thunk it?

Running Windows with Parallels on Intel Macs

The primary virtualization use for Intel Macs is running Windows, not Mac OS 9, and two strong solutions exist for this task: Parallels and VMWare. I already had a copy of Parallels on my Mac Pro, so I went down this road.

The Primera Signature II has drivers written for Windows 98 and 2000; these drivers are listed as not XP compatible. They are parallel port drivers, so I needed to purchase a USB-to-Parallel adapter. The Keyspan UP6C Parallel Printer Adapter fit the bill.

First step: Set up the virtual disk image. Parallels has the ability to install Windows from scratch, migrate a VirtualPC disk image, or migrate from an actual PC with Windows installed. I had several Win2K VirtualPC disk images available and an old PC running Win2K on the shelf, so I started with those.

Unfortunately the Parallels Transporter migration utility is not the program's most reliable feature, and I had no success migrating my VirtualPC disk images. Searches of the Parallels support forums revealed this was not an isolated problem, and several workarounds that were posted (and subsequently suggested to me by the Parallels tech support team) did not work for me. After a few attempts I gave up and tried my physical PC.

A small Migration Agent app runs on the PC, and the migration occurs via ethernet. This did work for me, but it was very slow and had to be left running overnight. Once migrated, I ran the Parallels Tools installer on the virtual machine to help integrate the system with Mac OS X.

...I finally got the printer installed and remembered why I prefer Macs.

Next came a bit of typical Windows hell: I tried to install the Primera printer driver and got all sorts of permissions errors. After more Googling, help via an expert PC colleague, forcing permissions, editing secpol.msc, etc., I finally got the printer installed and remembered why I prefer Macs. Another several days had passed.

Last came the USB-to-Parallel adapter. This was recognized by Windows when I plugged it in and needed to have it's own drivers installed - please insert the Windows 2000 CD. Installation began - and then bombed out with another error; the installer couldn't write something it needed. I moved the file there manually and ran the installer again - still no dice. I tried to install in Safe Mode - USB doesn't work in Safe Mode. Aarrgghh! I swore again at Microsoft and Bill Gates.

I suspect the problems stemmed from converting my physical PC to a virtual machine. I should probably just reinstall Win2K from scratch, but unlike XP this requires about 40 reboots to update itself online and will likely bring more headaches. Stymied again.

When All Else Fails...

It was now about a week into my printer project, and I needed to print some CDs for clients. I hauled out my PowerBook G4, installed the printer and adapter in Classic, copied over FileMaker Pro 4, and had things up and running in about 5 minutes. CDs printed no sweat. Hmmm, maybe I should just leave the PowerBook next to my Mac Pro whenever I'm home....

But I'm stubborn! With nothing left to lose, I decided to see if I could get the printer working in Parallels with Windows XP before I reinstalled Windows 2000. I booted up an XP image and installed the (non-qualified) Signature II printer driver. No problem, it went without a hitch. I then plugged in the Keyspan USB-Parallel adapter, the system made the typical Windows device-attached "ka-blink" sound and said "Primera Signature II printer found." XP automatically installed the necessary drivers in a few seconds. Not bad.

I installed FileMaker Pro v4 for Windows, which still runs fine in XP (wish I could do that in Mac OS X - score one for Microsoft, I take back a few curses). Open my label database, print to the Primera printer, and bingo! A labeled CD gets printed immediately, requiring only a few minor formatting tweaks to the template.

Victory! The solution that shouldn't work, does. The solutions that should work, don't. Welcome to computers. But hey, my goal was attained.

Networked Devices & Sharing

Persistence is the name of the game with a project like this. But besides virtualization, one more suggestion for using old peripherals with newer computers is to directly network devices and/or share peripherals via other computers over the network.

For printers, many adapters exist to connect DIN-8 serial (AppleTalk), USB, or parallel port devices to wired ethernet or WiFi networks. I recommend wired adapters when possible; these are more reliable than wireless devices (fewer dropouts). If you can enable the adapter or device for TCP/IP connectivity do so, this will be more widely useable than AppleTalk or Windows Sharing. Use a fixed IP address on the adapter so you can add by address rather than having to scan the network. FYI, HP JetDirect adapters are great for HP laser printers, but they don't work with inkjet models.

For printers and hard drives, another solution may be to keep the old peripheral connected to an older Mac and enable printer or file sharing. You may then be able to add the shared printer or drive to your Mac OS X system and access the device via the keyboard and software of your current machine.

Scanners and other specialized peripherals were usually not sharable in Classic Mac OS versions, but you may wish to explore remote desktop control of your old Mac to access the peripherals over a network. Methods for Mac remote desktop control will be covered in a future Adam's Apple column. 

This article was originally published on Adam's Oakbog website. It has been adapted and reprinted here with his permission.