Features:

  • Connect your Parallel, IEEE-1284, printer to a USB port on your PC or hub
  • Keeps the parallel port on a PC free by using USB instead
  • Connect multiple printers using USB instead of parallel
  • Eliminates the need for a switchbox by using USB ports
  • Package Contents: One adapter cable, User manual
  • Note: This adapter is designed for use with a standard Parallel printer and is not designed to support multi-function printers or other parallel devices. This adapter uses the USB Printing Support function of the operating system and is not designed to create a LPT port
HP Printers--Read this First!!

There is an incompatibility between Windows 7 64-bit and many HP inkjet printers. Here is how to solve it: Following the C-T-G instructions, "install" your printer without connecting it. It may prompt you to download a driver from Microsoft. Choose a printer driver for the correct series (ie: choose HP720series driver for HC722C). Then download and install 3 patches from this HP web page: [...] Continue the C-T-G instructions for installing the adapter cable. It should work fine now, and you can even turn on spooling and the other features now. I gave this one star to get attention. Please click on "yes, helpful" to bring this to the top where more people will see it. If I had not found this cure, it would have remained one star and gone back to Amazon. Now it's performance is 5 star. BTW, I hope that tech support at C-T-S eventually learns this so they can be helpful.

This Device Works as it Should

There were multiple reviewers that indicated the device does not work. Other's had no issues whatsoever. It really depends on how old your printer is and what you have for a computer. I did have to call the "geek squad" to assist with installation of this device. My printer is an older laser jet and I didn't want to replace it. I bought a new computer with windows 8. It took the tech an hour or so of doing this and that before the system could read the printer but there was nothing wrong with the cable. So....bottom line, the cable works....but your current configuration on the computer may need to be adjusted. Also...you may need to download the correct drivers for the printer as well. Unless you are familiar with what is involved in this process and you download the correct drivers...you may say the cable does not work. Again...I have to stress...it isn't the cable. It does what it is supposed to do...which is to convert an old pin style cable to a USB cable. Good price. Nice product. Good Luck.

No parallel port needed!

I have an older HP LaserJet 6P that is still going strong. However, my PC does not have a parallel port. This cable was a cheap and effective method of bridging that gap. The enclosed instructions are very detailed but I literally did not need to use them. It was 100% plug and play on my Windows 7 x64 system (I will be installing it in on a new Win10 x64 build soon.) Note that you must already have a parallel cable for your printer as this one effectively makes a parallel port for your parallel cable to use.

Works in iMac with an HP Laserjet 4

Update 8/23/2012: When OSX 10.7 came out, the cable quit working with my LaserJet and I finally had to donate the printer and cable to someone running windows. I would no longer recommend using this on a newer OSX system. Original review: My PC recently died and I replaced it with a new iMac with Mac OSX 10.5. I love my LaserJet 4 since it is so reliable and cheap to operate, and didn't want to rely exclusively on my inkjet printer. I decided to give this cable a try since it had good reviews. I took a risk using it on a Mac since it didn't state that it supported Macs, but it ended up working perfectly. Installation was a breeze. Note that this cable does not plug directly into the printer, but plugs into the computer end of the existing parallel cable. I'm OK with that since it gave me more length. When I plugged it in, the Mac recognized it as a new printer with a generic driver. All I needed to do was change the driver to the HP LaserJet 4 driver and it worked fine. I initially tried plugging this into a USB hub, but it only worked for a couple of sheets and then gave me a message that the printer was offline. I then plugged it directly into the Mac and it has worked perfectly since then. I also have another Mac and a PC on the network and they recognize the printer and print fine.

Worked Like a Charm to Connect my HP LaserJet to my Laptop

It did the job perfectly and easily.. connected my HP LaserJet 2100 to my Dell Laptop via USB. Just what I needed. My HP laser printer has a cord that is permanently attached to the printer on one end, and used to plug into the back of my PC on the other end, but my laptop lacks this type of connection.. all I needed to do was use this cable as an intermediary, plugging one end into the HP cord and the other end into my laptop, and voila, I have my laser printer back. I don't notice any degradation of throughput, the printer works just like it always has. I did not have to install any extra drivers, the laptop recognized my printer right away and it was off to the races. You just need to be sure that you examine the end of your printer cord that you need to adapt.. some have 25 pins, some have holes instead of pins, some have more than 25.. count the pins, note the shape, and order the right cable. I am happy with this purchase.

Flawless Under Linux with HP LaserJet

One of my computers was destroyed in an electrical mishap. After rebuilding a new system, I realized the my new motherboard had no parallel port. None of my computers except for the laptops had parallel ports, so I was stuck -- my rock-solid high-quality workhorse printer for the past 10+ years, an HP LaserJet 6MP, had no computer to connect to. Argh! I found this product - "Cables To Go 16899 6 Feet Usb To Db25 Ieee Parallel Printer Adapter". It mentioned "Windows drivers" so I wasn't too hopeful about it working under Linux (Kubuntu). But it was so cheap, I figured I'd give it a whirl. If it worked, I won the lottery. If not, I was only out (...). Well, it worked like a charm. I connected the USB connection to the back of the computer, and the Parallel connection to the printer. Loaded up the CUPS admin page and to my shock and amazement, CUPS listed an "HP LaserJet 6MP" as a local printer connected via a USB interface. Wow!!! I was able to print a test page immediately. No tinkering. No configuring. It just worked. Period. Linux rocks! I marked the printer as the "default" printer, and restarted Samba. My Windows XP laptops found the new printer share immediately, and were all able to print to the LaserJet share from the Linux box. My smb.conf still mentions "lp" (the old name of the printer; the new name is something like HP_LaserJet_6MP) in the printer commands: # Print lpq command = /usr/bin/lpq -Plp %s lprm command = /usr/bin/lprm -Plp %j queuepause command = /usr/sbin/lpc -Plp start printcap name = cups printing = cups so I don't quite understand how it works -- maybe KDE/CUPS override printing commands? Or maybe the "lpq command," "lprm command," etc are only for BSD lpd and are ignored for CUPS printing. I dunno. But everything works. I am quite pleased (and relieved that I don't have to buy a new printer).

Solved an expensive problem

My wife's new computer with Windows 7 seemed to obsolete her old trustworthy HP LaserJet 4P, due to lack of parallel inputs on the new machine. Even the "experts" told her the 4P would not work, which would have meant buying a new laser printer as well as trashing her perfectly serviceable and reliable HP. It was worth taking a flyer on this connecting cable before going that route. We connected the C2G cable to her existing parallel cable, plugged it into a USB port on the new computer, selected the proper driver, and her old 4P works beautifully. Apparently there is some confusion in the Windows world about the proper driver supporting the 4P. There is in fact an "extra" driver that comes with Windows 7 that interfaces perfectly. I am a Mac guy, so I cannot tell you the details, but a few Google searches will bring up the information. I avoid Windows like the plague, so if I can figure out the driver issue, anyone can. Her old 4P is chugging along happily, and this simple cable avoided hundreds of dollars in additional expense. It may not work for everyone, but it worked for us. Do a bit of research and make sure you get the right number of pins to match up, and perhaps you'll be as successful as we were.

It works with iMacs and HP Laserjet 4L

Recently I made the switch from a PC to an iMac. The transition has not been as smooth as I was hoping. It's taken me awhile to get used to the iMac and while I really like it for the most part, I'm still finding my iMac freezes up and crashes almost as often as my PC ever did--mostly when I have like 4-5 programs open and the internet going simultaneously. Kind of disappointing. Still, I like the iMac overall. And there is one thing I love about the iMac. You can plug almost anything into it and in my experience the computer almost always recognizes it immediately. That's what happened with my old printer and this cable. When I made the switch to iMac I found out that my old workhorse HP LaserJet 4L wouldn't plug into my shiny new iMac because there was no parallel printer port on the iMac and there was no USB connection port on the printer. So my old printer sat dormant for 5 months while I exclusively used my inkjet printer and tried to decide if I should junk the Laserjet and buy something new. Then a friend told me there were cables out there that could make the connection. So I checked here on Amazon and sure enough there were several options. I read a few of the reviews and decided on this cable since another reviewer had gone through virtually the same situation I had and made it work with his iMac. When I got this connection cable I plugged it into the end of the printer cable (Note: this connection cable doesn't plug right into your printer, you have to plug it into the end of your printer cable which is fine with me because it adds extra length). Taking the advice of another reviewer I plugged the new USB end of this cable directly into the back of the iMac (as opposed to plugging it into the USB hub I have). And dramatically...nothing happened. No window popped up on the iMac telling me that a new printer was installed or found or anything. Bummer, I thought. The thing didn't work. I looked at the instructions that came with the cable and there are NO instructions for using this with a Mac. There are only Vista instructions. So now I'm thinking either this thing doesn't work with a Mac after all or I'm going to have to go out on the internet and find a driver, etc. But then, out of curiosity I opened up System Preferences panel on the iMac and looked at the printer cue. Amazingly, there sat my HP 4L. Wow, I thought, the iMac never told me anything but just quietly hooked up my 4L ready to go. Sure enough, I opened up a Word document and tried to print it out on the Laserjet and it worked like a charm. So I don't have to junk my old HP LaserJet 4L after all. For the $17 I paid for this cable it was totally worth it!

works with HP Laserjet 4050 N

I initially bought a used cable from amazon, "like new". Plugged it in, nothing. computer acted like nothing was happening. I returned it, and bought a new one. Plugged it into the computer, then turned on my computer, and it immediately saw that something new was plugged in. Definitely DON'T buy a used cable from Amazon Warehouse! I then called my office IT staff (no, I don't have any sort of real access to my work computer) and they remotely logged onto my computer. they followed the Windows 7 64 bit 'wizard' for finding the correct driver. That honestly took close to 5 mintues! in the meantime, he looked on HP's website, and downloaded what they said was the correct driver. went back to the 'wizard' and either the manual download worked, or the wizard finally found it. I don't care what happened, it worked! Next thing I know, the computer says it's fine, we test printed, and everything was all right with the world again. Yay for these cables! FYI, one guy in our IT department put my ticket on hold because he said we had to buy a new parallel port printer card (??) for the computer. BS, man! I got on Amazon and you guys paved the way, so Kudos to all the reviewers who gave great directions!

Worked Great

Have a HP Laserjet 6L printer. The Kensington Hub that used to work with it burned out (lightning). Purchased this cable, but was not sure it would work on a Dell Inspiron XPS Laptop PC with Windows 7 (64 bit). We had tried to use another cable at our other home, and installation did not happen. I followed the instructions given in one of the reviews: 1. Get printer ready to print 2. Computer and printer - off! 3. Connect cable to printer and USB end to computer. 4. Turn on the printer. 5. Turn on the computer. The computer should detect "new hardware" and start the installation of the appropriate driver - wait a few minutes until done (if this step does not occur, you will probably have to start over or try something else). To see if installed properly, go to Start button and select Devices and Printers (or select Control Panel and then Devices and Printers). You will see a listing of printers that have been set up for your computer. You should have the one listed that you just installed (I had 3 - an original and two copies from aborted tries from other times). Place your mouse cursor over the new printer icon and see if it reads Ready (hooray!) or Offline (boo!). if Ready, then right click on it and set it as your default printer (green check appears). If none of the printer icons for your printer read ready, then your installation was unsuccessful. I had to change from copy 1 to copy 2 in order for mine to work (probably a different USB port was activated) A great buy for the price, especially with all the information given in the reviews.

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