Home > Consumer Reviews > USB To Parallel Cable

This cable enables you to connect an older, parallel printer to a USB port on your computer at nearly half the price of other cables in this category. If you have a parallel printer, a spare USB port and use Windows XP or 2000, you need this cable. Why? Windows XP and 2000 do not allocate a processor interrupt (IRQ) for the parallel port. This means that Windows must do this on demand and allocate more memory and processing power to the task of printing, which can bring your computer to a screeching halt at least for a few seconds. It will not be like having a new computer, but this small investment may save you time and frustration when you print.

Thumbs down for documentation and support, but cudo's for device effectiveness!
If you can survive the initial realization that the adapter you bought just doesn't work per the instructions that were supplied with the purchase, if you can put up with inneffective support responses, and if you have enough moxie to search the internet for instructions for similar products, you will realize that the instructions that come with the device are not up to date with the simplified steps needed for Windows XP installations.
Windows XP does not require the software supplied with the adapter, so you don't have to worry about not having a floppy disc drive (floppy is supplied). Just set the printer "Port" properties to the USB001 ""Virtual Printer Port for USB". then "go to town" printing.
Once working, I think it runs twice as fast as the old parallel set up.
Micro Innovations needs to recogize the need for update to printed instructions in their website to help newbies like me (You can't even get a manual download from website). I lost a day working on trial & error set-ups that wouldn't work.

I ran to numerous PC stores (CompUSA, Fry's, PC Mall) an nobody carried this in the store. Comp USA said that no such cable existed.
Do not listen to them. This cable works.
I recently purchased a Dell Dimension 9100. This cable allows me to hook up my old HP Lserjet 4l to my new PC. I hooked it up, flicked the switch and Windows XP detected it and did the rest.
Printer works.

Kevin

I'm slowly transitioning from a Win98 laptop (with which I used my HP LaserJet 4L for year) to a new XP laptop (which has no parallel port). I wanted to continue using the same printer, and this adpater works great on the XP laptop. The only confusing thing was that the instructions didn't say how to install for XP, but all I had to do was plug it in and XP figured it all out.

But since this adapter comes with a Centronics connector rather than a DB25 connector, I had to plug it in directly to printer, replacing the cable that I would hook up to the parallel port on my Win98 laptop. So to avoid having to unplug at the back of the printer in cases where I want to print from the old laptop, I wanted to install this adapter on my Win98 laptop. It installed, but it is completely unreliable printing (on the test page the Win98 logo prints ok but the big font is all messed up, or on other tries it reports the printer is out of paper when it isn't). But I know the USB port on my Win98 laptop works bidirectionally with no problems with a ZIP drive, so I don't think it can be blamed on my older USB port completely.

Also, the drivers are only supplied on floppy (and aren't available at the manufacturer's online site!). So if you are using a computer that doesn't have a floppy drive (but is using an older Windows version where you need to load the drivers), be forewarned!

Cheap, and Perfect. Perhaps because I have a recent laptop running Vista, I only needed to attach the cable, and voila, without even using the installation disk, the driver was successfully installed. In under 1 minute. The printer is old but good, an HP4MP.

Most difficult part is opening the hard shell plastic package. This took about 5 minutes.

I had read other reviews, and was prepared for a more difficult install.