I have just the same problem.

Marc
At 18:06 -0500 30-12-1998, Steve Revilak wrote:
>I had a little time to play with this today (my last attempt at setting
>up a postcript printer was an old GCC model that only supported
>appletalk; needless to say that didn't go very far).
>
>In my case, I'm using a laserwriter IIf.  On the back is a 25-pin D-sub
>connector (labeled RS-232C), an 8-pin mini-din and a numerical selection
>wheel.  For connections, I'm using the 8-pin din connected via a 9-pin
>to 9-pin serical cable (formerly used to hook up a now defunct
>stylewriter.)
>
>>From what I've been able to find out, the numerical selection wheel is
>used to configure the printers communications settings.  Under MacOS, I
>can use apple's LaserWriter Utility to print a configuration page that
>will show what the various settings of the wheel correspond to.  Under
>each, the D-sub works as a serial port.  The 8-pin works under
>localtalk, with the exception of settings 5 & 6, which function as a
>serial connection.
>
>I chose setting 5: serial, 9600 baud, 8N1, xon/xoff
>
>On the BSD side, I have the following as a printcap entry:
>
>	# Apple LaserWriter IIf
>
>	lw2|laserwriter-IIf|Apple LaserWriter IIf:\
>
>	:lp=/dev/tty01:sd=/var/spool/output/lw2/:mx#0:lf=/var/log/lpd-errs:\
>		:br#9600:ms=xonxoff:\
>
>So the printer is named "lw2", set to the printer port, and has a spool
>directory specified, and I have an environment variable specified for
>PRINTER.
>
>To test communications, I tried:
>
>	echo "Hello Printer" > /dev/tty01
>
>Lights flash...it's a start.  To make sure lp is working, I ask it
>to print a few text files.  At the moment, I'm not expecting anything
>to come out, since the Laserwriter is expecting to see postscript.
>Rather, I just want to see the jobs show up via lpq and also to
>see files moving in and out of the spool directory.  Both of these
>things happen... and the the activity light flashes on the printer.  So
>far, so good.
>
>In order to give the printer postscript, I downloaded the enscript
>package (I've used under solaris before -- it is rather nice).  In
>the past I've used this as
>
>	enscript [-flags] filename
>
>Trying this, enscript reports "sending xx pages to printer", the
>document shows up in the printque, I see new files in the spool
>directory, the lights on the printer flash....
>
>...and nothing comes out.
>
>To make sure enscript is working, I tried specifying an output file
>(-o option), and it sure looks like postscript to me.
>
>Any ideas?  (I do thank Dr. Bill for his tips.  Unfortunately,
>apple's developer site wasn't granting access earlier today when
>I tried to get the .pdf he mentioned.)
>
>Is there such a thing as an 8-pin to RS-232 (25-pin D-sub) cable
>-- and would I be better off trying via the RS-232 port?  Also,
>what are the effects of not having input & output filter entries,
>and suggestions for the bit-setting flags (fc, fs, xc, xs)? Yeah,
>I didn't get very far with the Apple sample that I posted earlier.
>Sorry about that.
>
>Thanks.
>
>
>Steve Revilak revilak@umbsky.cc.umb.edu
>======================================================================