There are two kinds of
NeXT printers: a
laser printer and a
color printer. I have the laser printer, so that's the one that I will describe. The NeXT laser printer is a very large and heavy (approx. 45 pounds) black box. It's got a
paper tray on the right side and an output tray on the left. There is one
button for opening it up. That is the only control. There are no other buttons or displays on it. There's not even a
power button; it comes on when the NeXT tells it to. The printer connects to your NeXT via a 9-pin
serial cable. It is
Postscript native.
Setting up the laser printer is very easy. Your NeXT should take care of all the local stuff just fine. For remote printing, just add all the hosts that you want to be able to print to the /etc/hosts.lpd file, one per line. Then you'll need to set up your remote hosts with the proper printcap. Here's the one I use:
ostscript:\
:lp:rm=obelisk.tdn:rp=ostscript:sd=/usr/spool/lpd:pl#66:\
:ty=NeXT 400 dpi Level II Printer:
You should replace "ostscript" with the name of the printer and "obelisk.tdn" with the name of the NeXT that your printer is connected to. Then, you can just get to printing things with lpr -P.
As an aside, the NeXT laser printer originally cost $2000.