Joan wrote: > 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?) The printer would still be using a parallel interface but the cable is not just a cable but a converter from USB to parallel. You can use this quite happily although there might a small reduction in speed if the printer port is using the full transfer rate of 3MB/s that it would be specified for. USB to parallel are there so that your scanner or ZIP drive can enjoy the freedom of a parallel port for their own and you do not have any more free slots or IRQ's to put in another parallel card Regards Joseph Lanzon [log in to unmask] Visit our website regularly for FAQs, articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more http://nospin.com - http://nospin.org