StarTech.com 6 ft. (1.8 m) USB to Parallel Port Adapter - IEEE-1284 - Male/Male - USB to Centronics Cable (ICUSB1284)

I finally had time to try this, long after I bought it, and it worked great. I can use my 1990s dot matrix printer with a modern laptop running Linux (debian). Plug and play... well, OK, had to figure out a few things in Linux, but it really was not hard to get this working. In a more common environment it's probably even easier. If you have the niche need for this product, I can recommend it without hesitation.

Works like a champ with my Zebra / UPS Thermal 2542 printer that has a parallel port (and serial). The serial port worked fine in UPS, but in third party shipping apps, that use a PDF it was very slow to print the image via the serial port. Plugged this in to the PC, the other end to the parallel port of the thermal printer, changed the port setting of the printer to USB001, and prints instantly. Turns my 10 year old+ thermal printer into a super fast USB version for the price of a cable.

Bought this cable to connect a 20 year old HP Laser Jet printer to USB on a Windows 10 computer. Windows had no problem finding a driver and installing the printer using the new cable.

First off, this arrived from Amazon very quickly using Free Shipping.My PC recognized this USB device immediately when I plugged it in. I did not connect the Centronics connector to my printer until I was satisfied the PC was happy with just the device. At no point have I had any problems directly related to this device, and once I got over one hump, my printer performs perfectly.The only reason I gave this 4-stars rather than 5 is the absence of any guidance or literature-none! If it was truly just a plug and play operation there would be no problem, but there was a problem.My computer (Win XP) has always printed to port LPT1 by default. When I switched to this cable LPT1 was no longer connected to anything yet my PC kept trying to print to it. It was not intuitive enough to know to print to a different port. It took me a good 30 minutes to an hour to learn how to redirect the printing to this device. I am only very modestly computer-skilled and needed to fumble around a bit before I learned what needed to be done and how to do it. Once I directed printing to this new port the problem was immediately solved. Just a little bit of printed guidance or a web reference would have been really helpful and appreciated. A couple small clues would have helped a lot. I believe anyone who simply uses a computer as a tool with no knowledge of it's operation would have to ask for help to use this device, but there is no telephone number or web reference for any kind of manufacturers or distributors contact or support.I would recommend this to anyone but with the caution that they might have to seek some help getting past the initial print port issue. Also, this is only rated up to Win XP machines according to the card in the blister pack so whether it is further certified for Win 7 is questionable. Perhaps the card is outdated or perhaps it is truly not rated beyond Win XP??

I'm convinced the cable is a solid product. (No comment on included driver disk... not required for Windows 7, and other recent operating systems)Wondering if this cable will work for you? I recommend following the first 8 steps below.If your printer driver is listed in step 8, I suspect your chances of this cable working for you is near 100%I struggled for a week to get this working. Here's the rub I encountered:I'm using a very old printer (HP Laserjet iip). When I tried to "add a printer" via the "Devices & Printer" dialog, the HP laserjet iip driver was not listed. I tried using the "Windows Update" option referred to on reviews here, and on countless other forums to no avail, because they fail to mention a key point.Here's the "key point": In order to update the list of printer drivers via "windows update", you must have selected the LPT1 printer port.... EVEN IF YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT HAVE A PARALLEL LPT1 PRINTER PORT.So here's my attempt to explain the steps necessary to get this cable to work on Windows 7 64bit OS, using an old printer not natively listed in Win7 printer driver list:First, update printer driver list & install your printer driver:1- Select "Start"2- Select "Devices & Printers"3- Select "Add a printer" (near top of dialog)4- Select "Add a local Printer"5- Select "Use an existing port: LPT1 (Printer Port) - EVEN OF YOU DON'T HAVE THIS PORT6- Select "Next"7- Select "Windows Update" (may take a while... but will update driver list)8- Select the manufacturer and printer from the scrollable list9- Select "Next"10- Enter a junk printer name like xxxxx11- (since you don't have LPT1 this will go away after next boot)12- Select "Next" (will install printer driver)13- Select "Do Not share this Printer"14- Select "Next"15- Select FinishNow that the print driver has been installed on your PC, attach the USB cable to your PC(Win 7 will install a the USB cable driver automatically)Then execute similar steps as follows16- Select "Start"17- Select "Devices & Printers"18- Select "Add a printer" (near top of dialog)19- Select "Add a local Printer"20- Select "Use an existing port: USB001 ***(NOTE: if you have other USB printers then select the maximum USB port number)21- Select "Next"22- Select the manufacturer and printer from the scrollable list23- Select "Next"24- Select "use the driver that is currently installed (recommended)25- Select "Next"26- Enter an appropriate printer name (e.g. HP Laserjet iip)27- Select "Next" (will install printer driver)28- Select "Do Not share this Printer" (unless you want to share the printer)29- Select "Next"30- Select FinishHere's hoping this helps anyone!

I have been using this for the last few months with an old HP LaserJet 4 that I refurbished myself. I have to say that it works fantastic as long as you do not have to plug & unplug thing. I use mine on a laptop and every time I plug it back in the first print job screws up 7 out of 10 times by printing up to a hundred pages of one line gibberish.This is NOT the cables fault, it is the stupid windows 8.1 printer que!! So everytime I need to use it on my laptop I have to plug it in, turn the printer on, reboot the laptop, wait for both, then run my print jobs. If the gibberish starts then I just cancel the print job, reboot the computer, print a test page, if it's all fine then I restart my print job. I also store all my print jobs in the que so that if there is an error I can just restart that print job, when I am done and the print job was a success I then go and delete them from the que.Again: The adapter works fine, it's windows 8.1's print queue that screws it up!