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wnlewis

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 20, 2017
185
46
Newton, Kansas
I have an HP PSC 1510 printer. I have the 1500/1600 PSC install disk. I start to install the software. It tells me there is no printer connected by USB. The computer - a very much upgraded G4 running 10.4.11 - sees the printer and says so in the about this mac information. The install disc is very specifically labeled for Mac. It is authentic HP, not a copy. The USB cable is brand new. I tried the install disc with an older G3 iMac, running 10.3.9. Same results. HP has pretty much made it so that if you don't have the software, you can't get the software, and definitely no help. What am I doing wrong? Or, do I need to pick up a different 1510? This printer works fine on USB with an HP desktop running Windows 10 latest version. Thanks for any help or questions.
 
You can forget about any driver from HP, per their support website they only support 10.6 and later on this model of printer.

Your best bet is probably here: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php

At that link you'll find open source printer drivers for a variety of printers, among them some HP models, although I didn't see your particular model listed. You'll need to download an older version - Gutenprint 5.0.2 is the last one that supported Tiger. That may or may not solve your problem, but it's worth a shot; I've had good luck in the past going that route.
 
I have an HP PSC 1510 printer. I have the 1500/1600 PSC install disk. I start to install the software. It tells me there is no printer connected by USB. The computer - a very much upgraded G4 running 10.4.11 - sees the printer and says so in the about this mac information. The install disc is very specifically labeled for Mac. It is authentic HP, not a copy. The USB cable is brand new. I tried the install disc with an older G3 iMac, running 10.3.9. Same results. HP has pretty much made it so that if you don't have the software, you can't get the software, and definitely no help. What am I doing wrong? Or, do I need to pick up a different 1510? This printer works fine on USB with an HP desktop running Windows 10 latest version. Thanks for any help or questions.
You can forget about any driver from HP, per their support website they only support 10.6 and later on this model of printer.

Your best bet is probably here: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php

At that link you'll find open source printer drivers for a variety of printers, among them some HP models, although I didn't see your particular model listed. You'll need to download an older version - Gutenprint 5.0.2 is the last one that supported Tiger. That may or may not solve your problem, but it's worth a shot; I've had good luck in the past going that route.
What about using Pacifist to move the drivers into the correct folder location?

I've downloaded the driver file for 10.6. It's a .pkg. It opens in Pacifist. You can set Pacifist to have it install this stuff into the correct folders. Although I don't expect you could use any of the actual HP software.

But once the drivers are installed, you can create a new printer and direct it to the correct driver.

I've made '10.6' only Samsung printers work on my PowerPCs Macs this way, although I didn't need to use Pacifist. Samsung had the drives uncompressed.
 
You can forget about any driver from HP, per their support website they only support 10.6 and later on this model of printer.

Your best bet is probably here: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php

At that link you'll find open source printer drivers for a variety of printers, among them some HP models, although I didn't see your particular model listed. You'll need to download an older version - Gutenprint 5.0.2 is the last one that supported Tiger. That may or may not solve your problem, but it's worth a shot; I've had good luck in the past going that route.
I have checked gimp-print/Gutenprint. The problem remains. When the computer starts up, the install routine runs and fails when it cannot find a USB printer attached to the computer. I tried installing usbtb. That did not help. This seems to be a USB recognition failure.

I tried the software on a G3 iMac with the same results.

I'm tempted to think that there is something wrong with the install disk, or the printer.

The install disk is a genuine HP install disk for Macintosh.

Thanks for any input.

What about using Pacifist to move the drivers into the correct folder location?

I've downloaded the driver file for 10.6. It's a .pkg. It opens in Pacifist. You can set Pacifist to have it install this stuff into the correct folders. Although I don't expect you could use any of the actual HP software.

But once the drivers are installed, you can create a new printer and direct it to the correct driver.

I've made '10.6' only Samsung printers work on my PowerPCs Macs this way, although I didn't need to use Pacifist. Samsung had the drives uncompressed.
As I noted in my other reply, the whole process stops when the printer install software fails to see any USB printer connected to the G4. The USB ports on the G4 are working properly. The problem was replicated on a G3 iMac with good USB ports.
 
As I noted in my other reply, the whole process stops when the printer install software fails to see any USB printer connected to the G4. The USB ports on the G4 are working properly. The problem was replicated on a G3 iMac with good USB ports.
Perhaps you misunderstand me?

Pacifist is an app that opens installed pkg files. You can use it to force installs of stuff as well as extracting things from those pkg files. Normally these are inaccessible.

Here's a screen shot showing the HP pkg file as seen by Pacifist.

From there you open System Preferences, go to the Printer section and click on the Add Printer button. Add it in manually and select the correct printer drivers.

Installing using the HP printer install software (as you keep mentioning) has nothing to do with my suggestion.

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