...
"in error" only if you consider the IBM PC and compatibles as the correct
"standard".
As Brian pointed out, back in the days when computer users were (by necessity)
more technically competent than the majority of users today, most interface
connectors on equipment were female, regardless of whether they were DTE, DCE,
serial or parallel, or even disk drive connectors. Cables were male on both
ends and you were expected to read the label on the port and/or know or check
what went where.
As John points out, if you bent or broke a pin you only had to replace the
cable.
The advantage of the IBM male serial connector is that it helps to prevent
plugging a serial cable into a parallel port or vice versa, which our original
poster wants to do with his ZIP drive; because of the substantially different
voltages and polarities this can fatally damage the parallel port.
m
----- Original Message -----
From: Josh Malone
To: m...@bitchin100.com
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2017 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: [M100] M100 Digest, Vol 80, Issue 9
Depends on whether you consider the M100 to be "communications equipment" or
"terminal equipment". From the perspective of "this is a device to be hooked up
to your main PC" then female makes sense, somewhere. But I think the port is
wired as terminal equipment, which then puts it (technically) in error.
Oh well :)
On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 11:11 PM, John R. Hogerhuis <jho...@pobox.com> wrote:
On Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 7:22 PM, Brian White <bw.al...@gmail.com> wrote:
* I heard someone suggest that actually the M100 was probably technically
correct according to the standards of the time, and predated the PC, and it's
actually the IBM PC that came along, backwards, and essentially made everyone
else change. This perfectly believable to me. So when I say the M100 is
"backwards", it's only in the sense that it is the exception now, not that it
is wrong.
Well, a female DB-25 certainly makes more sense on a laptop. Avoids problem
of pins getting damaged and wrecking your laptop instead of the cable.
Another great design moment or accident of history that makes most of our
Model 100's still functional 34+ years later.
-- John.
