When my venerable HP LaserJet 4M Plus died, I knew I would have a problem hooking up my old DOS-based computer to a new printer, given that parallel ports on printers have pretty much gone the way of the dinosaur. I got a nice, new HP Laser Jet Pro M404dw which works great with my laptop through my network, but requires a USB cable for a hard-wired connection. I tried a couple straight parallel to USB cables, but to no avail. Then I tried this device, and voila! problem solved.For those who might want to know, I have an old HP Multimedia 6170s running DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I use such legacy Windows applications as WordPerfect for Windows 6.1, Lotus Improv, and Pagemaker 6.0. On the DOS side, I use Wordstar, Lotus 1-2-3 and dBase III Plus.There is one downside however, as sometimes it takes a long time for certain files to print.