I have an older parallel printer that I intend to connect to my newly finished PC. It will go from the new PC USB port to the parallel cable or connector coming from the printer. I have two questions: 1) Since printer will be hooked up to the USB port, will it still require AC power or will it now be powered by the USB port? and 2) Is it better to hook cable up directly to the printer(RS232 to USB) or hook cable to existing parallel port cable(female connector to USB)? In other words, is it better to connect the cable directly to the printer, or can you just splice the existing cable by using a parallel female to USB male cable? The length between computer and printer is no more than about 12 feet, maybe less. Thank you.

"1) Since printer will be hooked up to the USB port, will it still require AC power or will it now be powered by the USB port?" It still needs AC power. In fact all USB printers I've seen still need an AC source. "2) Is it better to hook cable up directly to the printer(RS232 to USB) or hook cable to existing parallel port cable(female connector to USB)?" As illustrated in the link below, most adapters connect to the printer, with a male USB plug going to the PC: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...

Hi yes you will still need AC power to the printer. [can you just splice the existing cable by using a parallel female to USB male cable?.... No]. Ive not seen a gender changer for parallel to usb but if it works like this cable ( see link ) then there should be no problem, i appreciate new gizmos are appearing all the time so maybe there is one. http://www.amazon.co.uk/ABC-Product... Theres supposed to be a limit of 5 Metres (15ft?) for usb cables, then you have to use a usb repeater. (ps ive used these in the past with no problems except for driver issues with vista.) lol T.R.A :)

Thanks for your responses folks! Yes, I've seen the cable you both pointed out. Did you know there's also a female parallel cable to male USB? That way you can extend an existing male parallell printer cable and keep the original parallel cable connected to the printer! I just saw where there may be driver issues with USB to parallell cables in general with Vista with certain models of HP printers. My printer is HP Deskjet 712C; I'll have to research further for more details.

hi cyberdude i havnt seen a parallel /usb gender changer yet , have you a link pls. thanks

To further comment on #6 I suggest you make sure drivers for the printer are available for your printer/OS combination. HP is notorious for stopping support for their products after only a few years. One other thing that I would question (I don't know the answer) is if parallel to USB works with all Parallel port mode requirements. You may want to consider using an add in card instead. Example below. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

1stepbeyond, It's actually not a gender changer. It's a cable with parallel female on one end and USB male on the other. This way, you can leave your original parallel cable connected to the printer and where you would normally attach the cable to your PCs parallel port you instead attach the female cable to it and the other end gos into the USB port of the PC. A couple pictures should show you what I'm talking about: http://microcenter.com/single_produ... and http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat... 2nd link has better close up view. So, what I'm saying is this is another option for connecting a parallel printer to a PC with only a USB port.