You would never want your point of sale system to be down because you ran out of paper. Receipt and remote printers are the parts of your point of sale system most prone to failure. The same is true with regard to not have a supply of ribbons to use when your existing ribbon gets too light to read. This is also true for printer for sale. For the most part, scanners, cash drawers and pole displays will not work with a parallel interface. Follow the money.
In many cases the local dealer will offer you a loaner program. Which is similar to HP printers for sale most of the time. Both Canon and Hewlett-Packard have been involved in lawsuits over both cartridges and alleged unfair competition. They did so because of the superior speed and reliability of the parallel interface compared to the then standard serial connection.
In most businesses this is totally unacceptable and can cause significant loss of customer service. In 2005, Lexmark won a suit that gives the company the authority under patent and contract law to enforce the “single use only” policy that’s written on the boxes in which their cartridges are packaged. Another reason that parallel cables are not good for long runs is the thickness of the cable and the cost.
You keep other supplies in your operation and you should consider keeping a backup printer as well. Shawn Lead has been working in the printer and ink industry for over 6 years. Usually this is the exact opposite of cheap printers. Unless you screw in a serial cable you will have the same problem with cables coming loose.
In systems where a parallel printer is used as the point of sale receipt printer and a serial or Ethernet printer is used for the remote printer you will need to buy 2 different printers as most printers do not have multiple interfaces. By utilizing an otherwise ignored communication interface, freeing up other interfaces to be used for other devices and by having a locking connector parallel receipt printers are truly the perfect receipt printer for point of sale systems. You are not as stressed by having your point of sale system be crippled by a down printer.