[rescue] Seeking DB25M to HDDB68M SCSI cable

[Mr Ian Primus]

--- Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:

> On Tue, May 29, 2007 at 09:51:50AM -0400, Ethan
> O'Toole wrote:
> > Yea, that's about the most gross cable you could
> come up with.
> 
> I would have thought that the worst would be VHDCI
> to that either
> centronix or that monster 3 row 50 pin cable that
> Sun 3s used to use.
> Personally I think the centronix are gross, but the
> Sun 3 style is
> definately less common.

Heh. Reminds me of a customer we had that upgraded
their PC's. They got these cheesy little Dells with
small, flat cases. This was fine until we tried
swapping out machines equipped with scanners. We had
to buy SCSI cards for the machines, and of course
normal SCSI cards wouldn't fit because these machines
took only those stupid short bracket PCI cards. We
could only get cards with the VHDCI connectors on
them, then had to buy cables to go from VHDCI to 50
pin Centronix to hook up the scanners. VHDCI to HD50
in some places. I was amazed that they even made such
a cable (Centronix to VHDCI). But, they did, and it
worked fine.

The great thing about standards is that there are so
many to choose from.

To the original poster - I have never seen a DB25 <->
HD68. Not saying they don't exist, but I have never
seen one. SCSI over DB25 never worked all that great,
I think only Macintosh computers (and really cheap
scanners/scanner SCSI cards) used it. You might have
to use some adapters in there. Or, pull the cable out
of an old 50 pin Centronix drive box (two Centronix
50's and a 50 pin IDC connector on a ribbon), and use
that as an adapter. DB25 <-> Centronix 50 are really,
really common. Plug that into one side of the drive
box cable, then a Centronix 50 <-> HD68 cable on the
other. That cable is a little rarer, but does exist, I
have at least one that I'm using. Or plug some other
combination of adapters together. Not elegant, but it
should work. I've misused SCSI cables many times
before (like using 68 pin ribbon cables to hook up
external devices...)

Another option would be one of those little 68 pin <->
50 pin converter boards. Go DB25 <-> Centronix 50,
then the drive box cable (Centronix 50 <-> 50 pin
ribbon), then the converter board (50 pin ribbon to 68
pin), then use a 68 pin ribbon to connect it to the
differential converter, then whatever to the tape
deck. Wow. That would be a mess, but it should work,
and you could fold up ribbon cables, converter board,
etc. and put them into a project box or something.


-Ian