Thread: Getting 5V out of a laptop using USB

I want to power an alphanumeric LCD backlight; I'm pretty sure it draws too much power to use the parallel port but I'm guessing it'll be fine with the USB port, which should give at least 500 mA, right?

For some reason I'm terrible at reading specs, but according to this:
http://www.hantronix.com/down/20416l1.pdf
the backlight only draws about 300 mA. Is that a realistic number, or am I reading it wrong? If it's realistic, should powering it via USB be a piece of cake?

edit: got the current wrong, it should be accurate now