I'm in the process of resurrecting an Apple II+, and I have everything working including memory expansion and 80-column cards and two disk drives. All that's left is an Orange Micro Grappler+ card. I want to use it to connect to a modern printer that has a USB 2.0 connection. Does anyone know if this is possible and, if so, how to do it?
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While anything is technically possible, I don't think that you're going to get this to happen, at least not directly as you've described it. The hardware will be the least of your worries. Printers need drivers. The old printer specific ones scattered in various software for the A]['s won't work for what you're trying to do. The drivers for modern printers are large-ish pieces of software that you would have to recreate. You could have an A][ send a file to a modern computer and have it print it out. Setting that up to work semi-automatically would be the easiest route.
There is a device that supposedly converts parallel to a USB or Ethernet printer. But I don't know much about it other than what I've briefly skimmed on this web page:
https://www.retroprinter.com/
The other option I'm aware of is this device, which isn't direct printing. Again, I have no experience with the actual device. From what I can tell it takes the output from the Apple, and serves it up as a webpage accessible via WiFi. From there you could print that on a pc/Mac connected to your modern USB printer.
https://www.plaidvest.com/newprint.html
nick3092, thank you so much for your response! I will study both of these options more closely. Both of them appear viable based on a quick look, especially WiFi option.
This device is not cheap at about $120.00, but it offers driverless printing from a Centronics/Parallel connection such as on your Orange Micro card to a modern USB printer, provided, of course, the printer will natively accept whatever language (eg - text, PCL, PostScript, ESC/P) that your Apple II program is sending it.
Here's the manufacturer's page:
LPT2USB-Cable
And, here's Digikey's page where you can actually order it:
Digikey - Buy LPT2USB-Cable
I haven't had the need for this particular device, so I haven't ordered it.
An alternative I've investigated involves a $25 serial-TCP/IP converter to hook up the Apple II serially to a network printer, again without drivers.
Again, the former device is not cheap, but it's only money, right?
Good luck.