You can get an Apple serial to USB adapter but a USB card would be cheaper. The adapters are about $25.00.
You will only be able to get USB 1.1 without OS X which may or may not work with your printer. It should work though as most are backwards compatible with the 1.1 speed USB.
FYI - look for a card that has only 2 USB ports. The 2 port USB cards tend to be more pre-OS X Mac compatible. Then you can just download Apples extensions and your ready to print. You should be able to find a used USB card for around $5.00 plus shipping in case you have to pay for it yourself.
Ron
On Thursday, September 23, 2004, at 06:14 PM, Carolyn Harvey wrote:
Hi, geniuses!
One of our classroom computers is a PowerMac 6500, running OS8.6. It's really old, but still works fine for our purposes (severely handicapped children). My problem is getting a printer for this computer, as the printer port on it is what I thought was a "serial" port, i.e., round and similar (same as?) to the Apple ADB port. Since all our technology requests have to go through some tech whiz employed by the state, and who is definitely windoze-centric, I was sent an HP5150 deskjet printer and a serial-to-usb adapter. Unfortunately, the "serial" part of the adapter is nothing like the "serial" printer port on my 6500, as it's oblong and the pins are in two straight rows. So, I was thinking about getting a USB PCI card for the 6500, so I could just get a USB cable for the printer and not have to fool with adapters. The printer needs USB2.0, according to it's instructions. Will this ancient computer work OK with USB2.0? I know I'll have to download a USB enabler from Apple's website since the computer does not have USB built in; but I don't want to mess with it - and be out-of-pocket for this - if it won't work properly. Anyone out there know about the capabilities of the old 6500? Is an adapter a better way to go? And where I might fine such an adapter? Thanks for any > help.
Carolyn in Missouri
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