In this post, I mentioned A-Male to B-Male USB cable. While helping my friend find one, we noticed some labeled as such, but some labelled a USB printer cable. From appearances, they looked the same. Are they or are USB printer cables somehow different? Thank you.
A true “USB Printer Cable” has a USB connector on one end and an IEEE 1284 printer connector on the other, and includes a microcontroller inside to handle the protocol difference. These are only for old fashioned printers that still have an LPT port.
Pretty much every printer these days comes with a standard USB port. You just need a standard USB cable. Some folks might be labeling standard USB cables as printer cables, so that some of your less technically savvy folks who buy a printer and need a “printer cable” can find it.
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I’d expect a “USB printer cable” to have a USB Type A connector at one end and a USB Type B connector at the other end, while a “USB cable” could also have a Mini-B or Micro-B plug at the other end. (There are even Type A to Type A cables even if it’s nonstandard)
The simplified answer to your question is, no, they are almost surely no different.
I think the reason they’re called that is because apart from printers I can’t think of too many peripherals which still use the B-connector/header anymore.