All of your concerns are important.
Also, VERY important is the ACTUAL support,
(and the quality), given from your Operating System
for USB.
Of the ones I have seen, these cables provide a
service with their own drivers that is very similar (in away)
to the "idea", and limitations, of putting an IDE hard drive in
an external box, and hooking it up to the printer port.
There are Printer Drivers that will NOT work through
these converter cables.
(Xerox Printer "Super Drivers" come to mind.)
A good return policy is needed...
           Rick Glazier
----- Original Message -----
From: Joan Rapier <[log in to unmask]>
> I saw a cable today at CompUSA.  Centronics to USB.  S'posed to let you
> run your printer through your USB. The packaging boasted - "Free up your
> parallel port for other devices such as your Zip Drive or external
> drives.  Connnect your printer to your USB..."
>
> If a printer is designed to use the parallel port, can it use the USB
> bus as well?  Is this ability defined by the printer? the chipset?  (USB
> rev?)

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