[maven12]

I see lots of comments about HP and Epson printers, but will the HP 970cse, for example, work with the PowerBook USB? I've never used USB, so I'm not familiar with it and with the A/B cord that's involved.

Any advice?

I use a HP 970Cse with my Bronze Powerbook and iMac. Both work flawlessy for my uses. I you have a PowerBook, could I assume you also have a desktop Mac or even a Windoze box? If so, don't use USB - the HP Print Server is a bit pricey, but gives you 10baseT speeds and allows sharing between all your Macs and even Windoze PCs with the 970 (this is how I'm setup now, and it also allows my old, non-USB PowerMac 6400 to use the printer).