Laser Jet 1000, we miss you so

February 7, 2014 10:03 AM

Anyone have a good/safe source for a driver for the HP Laser Jet 1000 - difficulty Windows 8.1? The printer is a workhorse but my dad just "upgraded" to a new computer with 8.1 and I'd like to find him a way to use this printer. It's an ancient printer and HP long ago stopped supporting it (of course, because HP).
posted by mrs. taters to Technology (8 answers total)

Have you tried the Universal Print Driver? The front end is a little obnoxious, but for the most part it seems to just work with lots of random old HP printers.
posted by Oktober at 10:17 AM on February 7, 2014

I don't think the LaserJet 1000 is supported by the Universal Print Driver because it doesn't support PCL5, PCL6, or Postscript. It's very much of a WinPrinter and needs a driver specifically written for it. '

You're probably better off just getting a new, cheap laser from Brother, preferably one that supports Postscript out of the box so you'll never have to worry about having the correct driver again.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:33 AM on February 7, 2014

Did you try HP's driver for Windows XP? I use an XP era driver on my Win 8.1 system (for an Epson scanner that is no longer getting updates).
posted by DarkForest at 10:51 AM on February 7, 2014

Also: have you tried just plugging the printer into the computer to see if Win 8.1 already has a driver for that printer? Windows often comes with available drivers for older devices.
posted by DarkForest at 10:55 AM on February 7, 2014

Maybe you could run an older version of Windows in a Virtual Machine within your 8.1 installation. Connect the printer to that virtual machine, and run a print server or printer sharing queue from there. Then connect from your 8.1 installation as if it is a networked printer.

I have no idea if this will work, but it might point to a general solution (i.e., buy a dedicated print server box to share it on your network, or set up some software equivalent, like what I describe above).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:03 AM on February 7, 2014

I've seen people use the VM solution with Linux using the foo2zjs driver. Unless you're really into tinkering it might not be very reliable or fun to do this. I managed to get mine working under FreeBSD a long time ago...
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:12 AM on February 7, 2014

Seconding trying the Windows XP driver. May or may not work, but doesn't hurt to try.
posted by Aleyn at 11:59 AM on February 7, 2014

Response by poster: For posterity, the XP driver didn't work, the UPD didn't work, and just plugging in the printer didn't work.
For my dad's purposes, I bought a new Brother printer. Using another computer, I'm going to play around with the VM solution and I like the dedicated print server box idea.
Thanks for the suggestions, all!
posted by mrs. taters at 6:29 AM on February 10, 2014