First introduced in 1970, parallel ports were originally designed to connect business computers to printers. With their inclusion on the IBM PC in the early 1980s, they became an industry standard.

I don't think that's quite the same thing, though - that thread is talking about USB<->Parallel convertors, where I get the feeling uziqp has a printer that has both Parallel and USB ports on the back ...

Some businesses may still use older printers with parallel ports, and this is particularly true of devices that have special functions such as wide sheet or continuous roll printing. An adapter cable ...