Apparently the Parallel to 8-pin thingy is only to run one of those old external 28.8kbs modems through the printer. A regular parallel cable got it working. Thanks for all your support and kind words.
Hello, I inherited a Panasonic KX-P5400 laser printer from my parents. They were using it with an ancient apple computer and upgraded to the new emac which came with a free inkjet. Anyways I went to a thrift shop to acquire the necessary connector: Parallel port on mobo to 8 pin bus on printer...