Need Sun RJ-45 console cable

Tue Nov 26 15:48:18 PST 2002

Jeff Woolsey writes:
>> Quaere: what gender DB-25's did Macs have?  I think the current Macs
>> don't have them at all, but I seem to recall the early ones did.  And
>> I think it was female, in which case shame on them, but I'm not sure.
>
>Some Macs had DB-25's for SCSI.

Right, I remember that ... I think it's a nonstandard form of SCSI
though, because normally you need 50 pins.  I think all the early Macs
used DB-25's for SCSI now that you mention it.

Did Macs ever have DB-25 serial ports?  What gender?

Your comment reminds me: Sun 3's used a D connector for SCSI, but it
had 50 pins in 3 rows.  Dx-50, where x is left as an exercise to the
student. ;-)

>And I've seen them used by
>multiple vendors for parallel ports.
>
>"... so many to choose from".

Yes, IBM probably originated that: using female DB-25's for Centronics
parallel printer interfaces (probably because the Centronics connector
wouldn't fit through the slots for the PC's card cage).

I think a big factor also, for this as well as the Mac SCSI
connectors, was that the widespread use of DB-25's for terminals and
modems made the parts really cheap compared to other connectors.

I love this computer history thread, but I am afraid it's not terribly
relevant to this list.  Is there a mailing list that would be more
appropriate?  I don't know of any personally.

--Bill.

-- 
William R Ward            bill at wards.net          http://www.wards.net/~bill/
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        Consistency is not really a human trait.
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