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untidy heap of cables, a bit of id help needed...

chelseayr

Well-known member
sorry I didn't know what else to title this thread!! heh...

so anyhow finally got around to sorting through a box that had been 'shoved out of way' for a while and hmm...

din8-db25 cable with 'maclinkplus(tm)' on one end, is that a little like the macintosh version of laplink?

din8-db9 cable, no symbol or any name, any suggest toward its likely type?

a cable thats db25 at one end (but with only actually 4 pins toward middle) and db9 at other end (5 pins) and the apple logo is present, as always whats this?

din8 with apple printer symbol on it at one end and db25 (with only 6 actual pins, different positions than above) with apple symbol at other end....?

and finally theres misc dins-only cables some with just 2 to 5 pins and some that also has a small black tab, most have two arrows (one south one north) on the ends .. and theres also some couplers to mate some of these into longer runs

may be able to consider photos later in the day as its already sunny for today but mm yeah let me know :)

(and btw wasn't going directly discuss that here but may be willing to just find what size the largest bubblewrap envelope is at the local post office and make an offer to sell 'however much I can legally cram into a big bag or two' cables for minimal profit in the forum trading post area if the id-ing turns out into some interests)
 

bdurbrow

Well-known member
1) Yes, probably is setup as a null modem cable for connecting to PCs.
2) Likely another null modem cable.
3) Probbably a Mac 128k or 512k to Imagewriter 1 cable; or a modem cable.
4) How different? That sounds like a Plus or higher Imagewriter 1 cable.
5) Probably LocalTalk cables.

Photos would help confirm the assesment. Also, if you have a multimeter, you can lookup pinouts for those ports and see if each pin goes where it should.

P.s. If you're in the US, check out the USPS flat-rate boxes: if it fits, it ships.
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
DSC_9131.JPGDSC_9142.JPG
one end of a really huge coil of this cable (it must be like more than thirty feet!) plus another photo of two 'normal length' cables stuck with a few couplers .. so is this for or not localtalk?
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
one end of a really huge coil of this cable (it must be like more than thirty feet!) plus another photo of two 'normal length' cables stuck with a few couplers .. so is this for or not localtalk?

That looks like LocalTalk to me, yup. Three pin mini-din and reasonably thick wire.
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
DSC_9141.JPGDSC_9143.JPG
playing more of that 'whats these?' game here! and sorry about the apple printer symbol being a bit blurry in second photo but its there nevertheless
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
DSC_9145.JPG

very short cable (think length being alike to the card-to-card voodoo vga cable) so I had to hold it in U shape to get one photo of both ends .. as always any suggestions toward this' use? (the din end is 8 pins in case that was hard to see)
 

bdurbrow

Well-known member
The photos mostly confirm my earlier post. However, I’m now thinking that the really short d-sub 9 to din 8 is an adapter that allows you to plug in Mac 128/512 cables into a Mac Plus or higher; and would not be wired as a null-modem cable.
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
don't mind me asking as I've never ever actually gotten into touch with compact macintosh dated peripherals personally but...why the use of an entire db25 connector if you're going to only need just a few pins?
 

bdurbrow

Well-known member
That actually comes from before the Mac existed: originally, serial ports were designed for modems, so in addition to the lines carrying the data (send, receive, and signal ground) there were a bunch of control signals for the modem. As the serial ports were later used for devices other than modems, the unused pins were simply left off of the cable.

More than you ever wanted to know about stuffing a few bits down a wire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232

;)
 

chelseayr

Well-known member
thanks for the various helps, turns out certain envelopes have bit too much restrictions so just going ship by boxes. but anyhow I've made a new tradepost thread for to trade this :)
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
why the use of an entire db25 connector if you're going to only need just a few pins?

The RS232 standard mandates 25-pin D-type. Because, not only as @bdurbrow says,

there were a bunch of control signals for the modem

there's also a whole second set of data pins defined for a second data connection (why did they define it like this? I don't know, maybe someone else does). See pinouts here: https://www.pccompci.com/rs232-cable-technology.html

If I remember correctly, 9-pin serial is a de facto standard, rather than actually being defined in RS-232.

It's also perhaps worth noting that the Lisa also uses 25-pin serial ports, and one of the computers the ImageWriter was meant to go with was the Lisa.
 

valejacobo

Active member
As most users said, those are serial cables of assorted nature. DB9 is the default for Win PCs back then and nowadays, while 8 pin mini din was for Mac and other UNIX machines. The db25 was used most of the time for printers, and for external drives/cd writers. i would kill for a vintage one like yours, unfortunately, here in Argentina there aren't as many available as in te United States, so I'll have to make do with self-soldered adapters.
 

bdurbrow

Well-known member
Close -

DB9 was also used on the Mac 128k, 512k, and 512ke. The mini-din 8 didn't come into use until the Plus.

CD drives (well, all drives other than floppy drives) on Macs from the Plus to the Quadra 630 (which introduced IDE internal hard drives) were SCSI, not serial. However, both serial ports (due to the aforementioned standard from long ago) and Mac SCSI ports (because for some reason Apple wanted to?) use DB25 connectors.

:)
 
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