No driver, no problem — devs use Claude AI to craft native macOS tool for an 'obscure' Windows-only printer

India-based developer Kuber Mehta utilized Claude Code, an AI-powered coding tool, to develop a macOS driver for the HP Laser 1008a printer. This printer, released in 2023, was initially only supported on Windows and Linux operating systems. Previously, only drivers for Windows and Linux were available for the HP Laser 1008a, which was a relatively obscure model.

Mehta's creation of a macOS driver is significant as it demonstrates that hardware compatibility issues may soon become a thing of the past. The HP Laser 1008a is a rebadged Samsung printer that uses a proprietary raster language (SPL3) and lacks a macOS driver. Additionally, it does not support PostScript or PCL languages, which added to the complexity of creating a driver for it.

Mehta used Claude Code with the Opus 4.8 model to generate the driver through a series of prompts. The process involved installing drivers, establishing the print language by analyzing error pages, communicating directly with the device, and running HP's real raster to SPL codec inside a Linux container to produce genuine SPL3. The final step was creating a reboot-safe background daemon.

Mehta then published the MIT-licensed installer on GitHub, which patches the macOS open-source printer driver package SpliX to add support for SPL3 printers. Mehta, who is already a developer, admitted that the process of creating the macOS driver taught him about macOS drivers, providing an unforeseen benefit of using generative AI tools for coding.