" Aloha Mike,
I emailed this last week, don't know if you got it.
My friend just sent me this link to me.
http://www.xdck.com/ss2500.html

I had thought about using hexedit since my Epson 670 was never going to be supported, I just did not know what to hack. This site gives the solution. My 670 now works with no problems using the 740 OSX driver. As the site states, you need to find a similar printer that has supported drivers for your unsupported printer. Hope this works for others. I have attached a pic of the printer is OSX printer utility as well.
Rick-aka Mauian"

Several readers commented on using various drivers at the UK Epson site [ftp://ftp.epson.co.uk/pub/uk/drivers/printers/inkjet/mac/] that are not listed at Epson's support site yet. Mixed reports on how the various drivers worked.

Epson 900 Driver Comments:
" Regarding Epson's OS X printer driver for the Stylus 900, I had a much better experience than either Todd Buchanan or Malcolm Duncan reported [on this page-Mike]

I have the Epson Stylus 900N which is the network version of the printer. I was surprised to read about this because I just looked for a driver the other day on Epson's site. The confusion is that Epson has the driver listed on the Stylus 900 page, but not on the Stylus 900N page.

Happily I can report that this 900 driver is working fine with my 900N on my G4 867Mhz and OS X 10.1. I am connecting to my Stylus 900N over a 100mb ethernet hub using AppleTalk. (As reported, there seems to be no TCP/IP) The interesting thing is that Epson adds their printer to the list of protocols (AppleTalk, LPR, USB, etc.) instead of to the Printer Model list. And because there was no Read Me, figuring all of this out was a bit tricky.

My printing speed is fast and that both my OS X and OS 9 drivers work. I can print both from OS X and Classic. I have no issues printing from OS X while Classic is running.

I conducted my test prints of a PDF. I used Preview under OS X and Acrobat 4.0 under Classic.
Tom Baker"

Epson 900 Driver Comments:
"Have the 900N. Under OS X, neither my Ti nor my desktop can see the Epson, even with AppleTalk turned on at both printer and machine. :(

I asked if they were the drivers from the USA site and not the UK site-Mike]
Yep - in the bundle that was released on Monday night.

Not being able to print is a hold-up for me. Luckily, I have a Win2K server at home - I print to PDF, move the file to the server, and print from a Windows XP machine. Awkward, but at least this way I do have a softcopy that is easily readable across mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.
Patrick Scott
Manager, Hosting Operations "

Epson 900 Driver Comments:
"hi, thanks for the info for the drivers! i downloaded them and once it's set up right, it works flawlessly!

the one thing that i had to do was select the printer in print center before my mac would recognize the printer. by default, apple's print center searches the usb bus for printers. what you need to do is use the pulldown menu (that lists the ports) and select "Epson USB". after that, my mac found my epson 900 in about 2 seconds and the printouts are great!

PowerMacG4/500 (AGP Graphics), 512 ram, OSX.1, the drive i selected for installation is my MacOSX drive.

hope this helps, as from the comments on your webpage, some people were having trouble printing even after installation.
-pxl"

One of the other reports below noted having to select "Epson USB" also.

Epson 900 Driver Comments:
" I followed the link on XLR8yourmac.com to Epson's UK ftp site
ftp://ftp.epson.co.uk/pub/uk/drivers/printers/inkjet/mac/
and downloaded the installer for the Epson 900 (which I discovered works for my 900N as well).

It doesn't describe itself as beta software. It installed easily. I printed a picture or two, and it seemed to work well.

I couldn't figure out how to configure the printer to be addressed via tcp/ip, but printing worked well using AppleTalk over Ethernet.
This is on a G4/AGP running MacOS X 10.1.
Jim R.

(Reports added 10/31/2001)

" Dear Sir,
Just thought I'd send a quick note regarding the OS X printer drivers on Epson's UK Site. These are available from the main drivers sections as well (just select your printer model and operating system). However, doing so reveals that these appear to be a "basic" or "generic" driver as regardless of what printer model you choose it returns the same version number 1.0E. This also highlights the differences between these "unreleased" drivers and those available from the US site. For example, the Stylus C80 driver from the US site has a version 1.1aS and the version available from the UK site is, like the others, 1.0E. Another hint that these are pre-release are that in contrast to the US/Australian drivers these come as pkg files rather than complete installers.

I suppose this would explain the varied results noted by others and it may be a safer bet to wait for Epson US site to make drivers available.

On a related note for non-US readers where the Stylus C70 is available, the Epson Australia site has version 1.1a OS X drivers available.
Kind regards,
Magnus Osterlund "

Photo 870 Driver Comments:
"Hi Mike,
I'm running OS X 10.1 and have tried the Epson Stylus Photo 870 driver on my B&W G3. I also had the installer crash but this was when it was trying to restart after completing the installation. Unfortunately it doesn't work for me, although it allows me to add the printer in print center, nay attempt to use it gives a connection error. It's possible to check the ink cartridge status with repeated attempts, but any printing fails completely.

I'll wait for next week and see if the offical release works any better. Any idea how to uninstall the driver?
Hindmost "

One reader noted there was a "Epson USB" interface option as well as USB. (see comment below).

Photo 1290 Driver Comments:
" I've installed the Epson 1290 OS X driver on MacOS X 10.1 5L14r. The first thing annoy me very much is in the print utility, it shows my printer is "unsupport" when I select USB port. I have to change the port to "EPSON USB" to add the printer to the list. By the way, I am statisfied with this early stage OS 10.1 driver.
Cheung Tsz Wing "

Epson 1270 Driver Comments:
"Just to go into a little more detail than the comments have so far, I installed the Epson 1270 drivers from the UK ftp website. After I installed it, plugging in the 1270 to my iBook's USB port showed the printer as "unsupported". But if you click in the drop-down for printer types, the 1270 is listed there as "Epson 1270 USB" but also, interestingly, "Epson 1270 AppleTalk" (perhaps we can get USB printer sharing after all?).

After selecting Epson 1270 USB, printing was fine. Dialog boxes showed paper types corresponding to the different Epson papers available. There are also dialog boxes for color matching, print quality, etc.

I haven't tried printing photos or 11"x17" prints yet but normal prints have turned out just as good as under OS 9.

Carl Jabido
Oh, forgot to add one more thing. The "Page Setup..." dialog box defaults to A4. First, this sorta implies to me that it was made for UK/Europe. Second, does anyone know how to change the default? It didn't seem like there was a "Save Defaults" button anywhere. "

" Dear Mike,
I downloaded the 120 OS X driver from the UK site yesterday. It seems to work okay as far as it goes, but there does not seem to be a way to select paper profiles when ColorSync is enabled, which for me makes it totally worthless. Epson's on line help is idiotic, saying only, "Select ColorSync when matching printed colors with the colors on your screen is important." Well, duuhhh....

Considering that under 10.1 I can now print to my 1270 from Classic AND use fully implemented ColorSync, this driver is a whole lotta nothin'.
Peter Harris
Staff Research Associate "

" OS X Epson Stylus Color 900
these drivers are also available for download at the uk site. After having successfully installed them, at least according to the installation dialogue box, print center still does not recognize the 900.
tony "

"OS X Epson Stylus Color 900
I tried the link, and lo and behold, the driver for my Epson Stylus Color 900 was listed! Very odd, since this driver isn't due for release for another week or so.
Well, the date on the file said Oct. 26, so even if it was beta, it was pretty recent. Worth a dl, at any rate. (It is a UK server, so maybe they get stuff we don't...)
Anyway, I dl the file (it gets dl'd to the trash, for some reason), and I run it. The standard install screen pops up. So far so good. But when I actually install the thing, it gets about 3/4 of the way done, and then aborts, saying there were errors during installation. =(
The moral of this story? I dunno. But something ain't right with that link. I'd think twice before grabbing stuff that's on there that hasn't been officially released by Epson. There shouldn't be any difference in OSX for the UK and for here, so it just makes me suspicious... Anyone know something I don't?
Cheers,
-John H. "

I told John to set IE's download prefs to point to the desktop or (as I do) a "Downloads" folder.

" OS X Epson Photo SC 900 driver comments
I found the drivers for my SC 900 on the Epson UK site. The drivers work well and now I can operate without having to reboot into OS 9.2.1. These drivers were posted in the UK on 10/26/01. They are not to be released in the US until 11/5/01.
Earl "

"OS X Epson 900 driver comments
I went to the UK ftp site and got the drivers for 10.1 for the Stylus Color 900. I actually own the 900N, connected via USB on a beige G3 desktop with a Powerlogix 466Mhz zif upgrade. Printer is recognized and prints about half a page without fault, but the bottom half has the text printing all over itself...images are all washed out and blurry as well. Other system specs: 768 MB Ram, 30GB 7,200 RPM Quantum drive, ATI Nexus 128 video...

The above error is occurring in Internet Explorer, Preview, and Acrobat Reader...I figure I will wait for the official US launch and hope things turn out better.
David
he later wrote

I went ahead and moved a hub upstairs and connected my Stylus Color 900N via Ethernet and I am still getting the same problem of text printing over itself, etc. My message yesterday reported problems via a USB connection on a beige G3 with a USB upgrade card. Thought that might be the problem.

The Epson print center comes up fine with all of the features available for control and troubleshooting the printer, but nothing seems to work to fix the problem... realigned the heads, cleaned the nozzles, etc.

Install Tip
Hint for the person that posted and said that print center would not recognize the 900-be sure that the install goes into the Library inside the OS X partition...I initially tried installing to a larger partition that doesn't contain the OS X boot and the printer wasn't recognized either.
David "

" OS X Epson Photo 870 driver comments
Mike -
I downloaded and installed the Epson 870 driver tonight - works perfect for me. I opened up a 1600X1200 JPEG from my digital camera and printed it from the Preview application on Glossy Paper using all the default color settings. It appears that the UK version is defaulting to A4 paper - perhaps a re-install when the US version is released will default to Letter. The printer is connected to my 800DP running 10.1 5L14 through an Entrega 7 port USB hub. Thank you very much Epson - I got this printer last year for Christmas and love it.
Dan H. "

"OS X Epson 900 driver comments
The driver on the Epson site works like a charm with the two Epson 900 networked printers...one with an AppleTalk card connected to a Ethernet/AppleTalk Bridge and the other with the 10/100 server card.
Hallelujah!!!!!!!
James E. "

"OS X Epson 1270 driver comments
It didn't exactly take a rocket scientist to edit the URL you posted for the 870 drivers to get the 1270 drivers!
ftp://ftp.epson.co.uk/pub/uk/drivers/printers/inkjet/mac/sp1270_macosx_full. sit
Seems to work fine--one test print so far.
Many thanks!
Jeff W. "

"OS X Epson 1270 driver comments
hi Mike,
I went to the ftp site mentioned on your page and found that they had an OS X driver for my Epson 1270. As far as I can tell the printer driver works fine (although for some reason the print job manager is maxing out both my CPU's.) The print quality appears to be fine. I am actually printing out a test document as I write this. And even though my CPU's are maxing out my system seems to be just as responsive as ever.
jdkoiles "

(comments from the 10/29/2001 news page post on Photo 870 drivers follow)

Althought the Photo 870 OS X driver was not scheduled to be released until November, a reader noted he found a link for it at an Epson UK site:

" Hi Mike,
first of all, big thanks for xlr8yourmac.com! Got my beige G3 an OWC G4/400/ZIF upgrade, a LG DVD drive and a Teac CD burner - and everything works wonderful with MacOS X 10.1 - thanks to your database and news reports!

Now, something important - here's the link where you can get a MacOS X driver for your Epson Photo 870:
ftp://ftp.epson.co.uk/pub/uk/drivers/printers/inkjet/mac/sp870_macosx_full.sit

There are more drivers available on this FTP (more as on the USA server). [For those new to the net, use the URL above minus the "SP870_macosx_fill.sit" to see the full FTP directory file listing. -Mike] Since I have the Photo 870 too I just downloaded the driver.
Regards,
Alexander
[he later wrote]
well, just installed them and printed a photo (using DIN A4 paper size). Looks like you can not change the border settings in the printing dialog (printing region: normal vs. extended). Since I have not found a way to add a custom paper size, I think I can not print "borderless" (you know what i mean?). The bottom border is too large - you can change it in the OS-9-drivers, but I can't find it in the X-drivers... damn :-/

Print quality looks to be OK (tested with GraphicConverter 4.1 Carbon and a full A4 photo print). Haven't checked the ColorSync option yet. Please let me know if you find a way to get rid of the bottom border... "

I've not had time to try this driver yet but welcome any other reader tips/comments on it.