RE: Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

[malcolm]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> > i need a cable that is wired for serial.
>
> The EIA serial cables that plug into the Berg connectors are pretty 
> much unobtainium.

I have a page that has some part numbers for suitable connectors.  It might be 
helpful here.

http://avitech.com.au/?page_id=1628

Malcolm

Re: Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

[Ethan Dicks]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 1:56 PM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> > i need a cable that is wired for serial.
>
> The EIA serial cables that plug into the Berg connectors are pretty much
> unobtainium.

There's' the BC05C and the BC01V... it's true that it's now hard to
get a vendor to list prices, but there are piles of them "in the back"
that aren't worth sorting through unless you know you have a customer.

I never thought of them as unobtanium, but we used to make our own
cables of this style for COMBOARDs that also have EIA lines for
TxClock and RxClock on DB25 pins 15 and 17.  Other than that, they are
remarkably simlar to DEC cables, right down to the DuPont housings on
the 40-pin end.

> I have a couple that came with an 11/04 I bought, but I've never
> seen one for sale, individually. So yes, you are going to have to make one.
> Fortunately, that's not too hard!

Agreed.  Plenty of docs on classic sites for BC01V and BC05C.

> The same search terms should provide the pins, too. The quality will be
> pretty crappy, but I find working with regular electronics suppliers' sites
> to be too painful (for me, at least).

We used to get the pins from Digikey or Mouser.  Last I checked, they
were somewhere around $0.25 to $0.40 each unless you bought a big bag.
Back when I was making cables for COMBOARDs, IIRC, they were around
$0.09 to $0.15 each in bags of 1,000.

http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/pdp8/hard8e/bc01v.html

http://gunkies.org/wiki/DEC_asynchronous_serial_line_pinout

-ethan

Re: Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

[Tony Duell]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2017 at 6:56 PM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> > From: Devin
>
> > i need a cable that is wired for serial.
>
> You mean EIA, right? (They're both serial... :-)
>
> > If no one has the cable, i could make one myself
>
> The EIA serial cables that plug into the Berg connectors are pretty much
> unobtainium. I have a couple that came with an 11/04 I bought, but I've never
> seen one for sale, individually. So yes, you are going to have to make one.
> Fortunately, that's not too hard!

I didn't realise they were rare. I think I have a few in one of my boxes of
cables

Ever seen such a cable with a blue outer sheath badged 'Inmac'? I think
I have one of those...

-tony

Re: Need serial cabe for pdp 11/34 M7856

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Devin

> i need a cable that is wired for serial.

You mean EIA, right? (They're both serial... :-)

> If no one has the cable, i could make one myself

The EIA serial cables that plug into the Berg connectors are pretty much
unobtainium. I have a couple that came with an 11/04 I bought, but I've never
seen one for sale, individually. So yes, you are going to have to make one.
Fortunately, that's not too hard!

> i just need the 40 pin connector that goes on the cable.

These connector (the individual wire kind, not the flat cable kind) can be
found on eBay under the search term "dupont connector housing". Here's a
listing for the 2x20 kind you need for a DEC serial cable:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/172446135576

The same search terms should provide the pins, too. The quality will be
pretty crappy, but I find working with regular electronics suppliers' sites
to be too painful (for me, at least).

Noel