On 5/30/2021 6:22 AM, Eric Moore wrote:
Hi, I have a DEC computer lab, but no cables. It works fine, but I would
love to pair it with an original-as-reasonable set of cables.
Are the mini-banana plugs the best modern replacement available? Are
pics of the original plugs available?
The mini-banana works OK, and I don't know of anything better that is
still available. A hundred of them (50 patch cables) won't be cheap.
https://so-much-stuff.com/pdp8/computerlab/computerlab.php
The photos get a little bigger if you click them. Those bits of stamped
brass or whatever they are made of were probably pennies each.
Vince
On Sun, May 30, 2021, 3:08 AM Vincent Slyngstad via cctalk
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 5/29/2021 10:52 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
>> While the mini-banana makes a passable (though expensive) modern
>> substitute, I believe the originals were hollow crimp-on taper pins,
>> #42107 or #42279.
>
> Really? I have loads of taper pin patch cables. I should try one out.
>
> The sockets just loom too big for taper pins.
I have a few original cables. They look to my untrained eye like
stranded hook-up wire with a crimp-on pin on each end. The pins look
like brass, and are about the size of the ones in the DEC current loop
connectors, except brass and fatter as you move back toward the crimp.
Like proper taper pins, they wedge nicely into the brass annuli on the
H-500. They also work nicely in the earlier Logic Lab panels that took
the flip-chip modules. I wish I could find a source for the pins, as
I'd like to make a pile of patch cables!
Unless your taper pin patch cables fit, and you want to unload a bunch
of them :-).
Vince
