[NTLK] Newton cable

[Victor Rehorst]

Yeah, that thing looks promising Dennis, but it's actually purpose-built 
for some other function.

Describing cables from the 1980s and 1990s solely by their connector 
ends doesn't tell the entire story.  I could use a DB25-DB25 cable with 
25 straight-through conductors as a parallel port cable, or a serial cable,

Back in the day, if I were in desperate need for a Newton-compatible 
serial cable, I'd ask for either a "PC serial cable for an Apple 
printer" or a "Mac external modem cable".

"PC serial to Apple printer"* would produce a cable with miniDIN-8M and 
DB9F (but sometimes DB25F) connectors. These were for connecting an 
Apple LaserWriter's serial/LocalTalk port directly to a PC.  They were 
/almost/ the correct pinout; attaching a null modem to swap the Rx and 
Tx pins around would make it work.

The "Mac external modem cable" looked similar, but usually had a DB25 on 
one end instead of a DB9.  This is the correct pinout, and worked great 
coupled with one of those formerly ubiquitous DB25-DB9 serial port 
adapters that everyone had a dozen of.

* (I actually used to use one of these /for an actual printer/ for many 
years, hooked to a LaserWriter NTR with a burned-out parallel port but a 
perfectly working serial port)

-V

On 2018-09-18 8:14 p.m., Dennis Swaney wrote:
> Oops, you're right, Frank. Here is the pinout for that DBK-103 cable from
> Hosa: http://hosatech.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/DBK-100_Pinout.pdf
>
> Interestingly, the link to the cable was one that Google gave me when I was
> searching for a cable that would work with an USA-19hs.
>
> Sincerely,
> Dennis B. Swaney
>
> "I think, therefore I Mac"
>
> On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 4:33 PM, NewtonTalk <newtontalk at pda-soft.de> wrote:
>
>>> If the USB adapter you have has a DB9M connector on it then you need a
>> MiniDIN 8 to DB9F cable like this one:
>> https://www.adorama.com/hodbk103.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIivLcxMy73QIVhshkCh
>> 2y
>> 6AvUEAQYBSABEgKnefD_BwE
>>
>> Be aware that the Newton cable has a special wiring. I'd be surprised if
>> the
>> cable above has this wiring. I'm inclined to think it is wired like an old
>> Mac modem or printer cable, which will not work.
>>
>> The correct wiring is described here:
>>
>> http://www.nsbasic.com/newton/info/technotes/cable.html
>> http://www.jneuhaus.com/applserl.html
>>
>> Frank
>>
>> -- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
>>
>>
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