Apple printer bug patch yet to appear

Apple has failed to produce a fix for an embarrassing compatibility problem which prevents its latest computers talking to two of its own branded printers.

The Macintosh machines, which use Motorola's PowerPC 750 chip, cannot print when linked up to Apple's Colour StyleWriter 4100 or 4500, both made by Hewlett Packard. Sources claim the problem was likely to be caused by hardware incompatibilities.

Despite the fact that a warning about the problem was posted on Apple's Website on 10 November along with a guarantee that a patch for the current driver, the 1.0.3, would be posted soon, a patch has so far failed to appear.

According to Apple's Website: 'The PowerBook G3, Power Mac 8600 250/300, Power Mac 9600 300/350 and Power Macs equipped with the 233MHz processor upgrade may also exhibit this problem.'

One dealer commented that the printing problem was causing a headache and he was receiving some complaints from users. Apple was unavailable for comment.