I have an old 1100 model # C4224A and the printer cable is messed up. I've looked everywere online but nobody has this right end that connects into the printer. It is a D connector and has 36 male straight pins sticking out on the printer end of the cable.

Have you tried eBay?

You are describing a 36 pin parallel printer cable and it is available at any store that sells PCs and printers. It also available at Radio Shack.

This type cable is difficult to screw up, what did you do to yours?

Yes. I actually ordered the one I thought would work but it doesn't have stright pins.

Yes it is a parallel cable. It is a C size. It measures an inch wide. Over the years of unplugging and plugging the pins are so tiny they bent.

Do you have a Best Buy or Circuit City where you are? Even better, do have a Sam's or BJ's you should able to pick the cable up for about $8.00. This cheap cable will have a 25 pin female on the PC side and the 36 pin male plug on the printer side. The reason the cable is so cheap is because a common ground for all the return signals.

Beldin, Lexmark, HP all sell higher quality cables that do not share the common. They supply an individual return line for each signal

Its hsould be a standard Centronics printer cable with a D connector and 2 rows of pins for the PC side and a Centronics plug on the printer side. These are still widely available.

What about here...
DB25 - IEEE1284 and Standard Printer Cable (http://www.sfcable.com/cable/c/55.html?gclid=CNS7xIuq9Y4CFSBMGgodNF16Dg)
Or here
HP LaserJet 1100 ( C4224A ) - Printers (http://www.superwarehouse.com/HP_LaserJet_1100/C4224A/p/120582)

Jstrike, nice resource there.
The cable you are looking for is one of these:
SF Cable: IEEE1284 A-C DB25 Male to HPCN36 Male Bi-Directional Parallel Printer Cable 3 ft (http://www.sfcable.com/cable/p/E412-03.html)
http://www.sfcable.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/e412-10.jpg

Is it using the mini proprietary HP jack instead of a standard Centronics? That's the cable Curly is showing.

I was just going to add... I moved oen of these printers for a client over last weekend, same model (the laserjet 1100) and yes, it does have the annoying little HP end on it, instead of a centronics connector.

It should take a standard Centronics as well. I had one awhile ago and I'm pretty sure that's what I used. That was a while ago though...

Printers 101. There are two type of parallel cables. They are easily identified by the male end (connects to printer).

If the connector for the printer is about 3" long, then you have a standard parallel cable.

If the printer connector is about 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches you have an IEEE1284 compliant cable.

The differences between the cables are legion and I don't want to spend the rest of my life typing them in, but the standard cable is looking for the NSTROBE signal to be low for about 500 nanoseconds before it goes and get the parallel port data and latch it into the printer.

The IEEE 1284 cable however uses a High Speed Port. The printer is able to communicate back to the PC. On the intake side, the PC latches data into it's register. One the data is stable, the printer drops NSTROBE. When the printer sees the falling edge of NSTROBE it immediately plucks the data, raises "BUSY" and Drops NACK to signal the PC that it has the data.