This is once again a post “back to the community”. When I encountered this problem, I looked aroung the net and I found many discussion in different forums, but couldn’t find any solutions. This is how I got things working, your mileage may vary.

I recently got a new computer, but I totally forgot that the printer I use (HP LaserJet 1100) only has a parallel connection while the new computer only has USB ports. Okay, you can get new black/white laser printers for less than 100€, but I happened to have a spare print cartdrige for that too so I’m not in a hurry to get rid of this rather nice printer, which was discontinued by HP in 1998 and which has this really lousy paper tray so that half of my prints end up with noticeable skew. Also, I noticed that there was several different kinds of USB-adapter cables available, which could solve my problem for just 20 – 30 euros!

After a long Google exploring session, I found out that there were some problems and lack of sure knowledge if this worked, especially on Mac OS X.

The Cable

I ended up getting Aten/Deltaco USB-parallel-adapter with DB25 female to USB connections. This cable probably is sold under different names around the world, but I guess the main thing is that most (all) of them has the Profilic Technologies’ IEEE-1284 controller in them. In addition to the old HP LaserJets and DeskJets, it also supports many other printers from other manufacturers (like Epson, Canon and Lexmark).

This is the cable you’re after if you’ve got one the HP printers with just a small connector in the back

This cable goes between your current cable and your computer’s USB port. Because my printer is LaserJet 1100, which doesn’t have the normal-sized connector coming out of it, but a smaller version (like many other HP’s printers of this time), you can’t use a a bit cheaper cable that connects your printer directly to USB. Of course, it doesn’t matter.

If your printer has it, the huge thing in the printer’s back is called Centronics-36 or Cen36 (also known as IEEE-1284A) connector. HP has instead used the smaller version, Mini-Centronics. I’ve no idea if there is a Mini-Centronics <-> USB cable, but because you can extend the Mini-Centronics <-> DB25 (the normal cable, that you used to connect the printer to your computer) with the DB25 <-> USB -cable, I don’t think so.

The box my cable was packaged said that this cable was supported on Win 98 to Win XP and on Mac OS 9 (and it came with one of those annoying tiny-format CD with drivers for Win 98). So, no mention of Mac OS X, but I figured that it would be really odd if a USB-thing would work on Win XP and an earlier version of Mac OS, but not on Mac OS X, so I took the risk. At home, I connected the cable to my printer cable and my computer and everything seemed to work, OS X recognized instantly the “new” printer. This was too easy!

The Problem and a Work-around

There is, unfortunately, one problem. For some unknown reason, after you’ve connected the printer you can only print once on Mac and. After that your jobs won’t get through and you’ll get an interesting error message “GenericClass: Waiting for device” instead. The only known workaround on the net was to reconnect the printer after printing (or restart your computer). The whole thing might be a problem with CUPS USB backend or somewhere (that’s the last operation CUPS logs in Console show before the job gets stuck), Google search doesn’t give a consensus.

Anyway, this isn’t really an acceptable workaround – especially, because it looked like every time you reconnect the USB cable, Mac OS X finds another instance of your printer, which is rather annoying, and you still can print only once. Also, if you have the printer manufacturer’s drivers for Mac OS X, try those instead of using Gutenprint-drivers or some others. The problem with LaserJet 1100 is that HP discontinued the printer way before Mac OS X was released so there aren’t any drivers on HP’s website for it.

Anyway, after a burst of reconnecting madness, I noticed that I had three devices (see image below) listed in the printers. One of them is the Printer-USB-cable controller and you definetly can’t print to it (in a moment on desparation, I tried). I’ve not tried what happens if I print to LaserJet 1100-1 printer, because, for some strange reason, I can print as much as I want with the first, LaserJet 11000! I’ve no idea what happened, but it works and I’m not going to touch in case the voodoo wears off.

This is probably a problem that could be fixed in a later version of CUPS (and some people say that things worked fine before Mac OS X 10.5), which means you might have this exact same issue in other OS running CUPS, like Ubuntu. I wouldn’t hold my breath, though, because we’re talking about 10 years old not-that-well-working-anyway hardware with a mystical adapter. New printers are cheap, but the old HP LaserJets seem to be made to last.

So, I hope this works for others, just reconnect the cable couple of times and don’t mess with the printer setup screen. It’s stupid, but so far I’ve not had any problems in over a month. Please let me know in the comments if you have some suggestions or improvements.

One way to easily fix this problem, I guess, is to get your hands on an old HP JetDirect-printer server (or any other pinter server with parallel connectors). This way you could add the printer directly to your LAN using Ethernet, which is a nice bonus. You should be able to get them off eBay or something or your company’s IT departments closets. The only thing is that these things probably cost more than a new printer, so they probably aren’t worth your while.

PS. I know it’s a miracle in itself that I got a working LaserJet 1100. Many of those didn’t last a year before breaking. HP printers before and after it, though are good, but my earlier LaserJet 6P was just way too slow. The good thing about that one, though, is that it’s network-able with the right, HP first-party-accessory, cable (which I believe is really, really hard to find these days). It is also rumoured that you could shoot a 6P with a shotgun and it still would work.

PPS. If someone has done this same thing by connecting an old printer using this USB-parallel-adapter to a Airport Express/Extreme’s (or other WLAN router’s) USB port and got it working, my congratulations. I’ve not tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.

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