27 Feb
2020
27 Feb
'20
7:27 p.m.
On Feb 27, 2020, at 6:37 PM, Adam Thornton via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I work at an astronomy facility. I get to do some fun dumpster diving.
I recently have pulled out of the trash a plugboard with a male and a
female D-Sub 52 connector. 3 rows of pins, 17-18-17. I took the
connectors off the board: there's nothing back there, so this thing only
ever existed so you could plug the random cable you found into it and its
friends to see what the cable fit.
I can't find much evidence that a 52-pin D-Sub ever existed.
Is this just Yet Another Physics Experiment thing where, hey, if your
instrument already costs three million dollars, what's a couple of grand
for machining custom connectors? Or was it once a thing?
No idea. I just got a new L-Com catalog, which has a large section of "D-Sub"
connectors and cables. It lists the following sizes:
2-row: 9, 15, 25, 37, 50 pin
3-row: 15, 26, 44, 62, 78 pin
So 52 pins is halfway between two standard sizes. For some definition of
"standard", of course. 2-row 9, 15, and 25 pin are common, 37 is for RS-422 if
I remember right but I haven't seen it in ages. The only familiar "high
density" (3-row) connector is the 15 pin one for VGA.
Those connectors correspond to the standard D-sub shells DE, DA, DB, DC, and DD in that
order -- as many people here know, the common 9-pin serial connector is not actually a
"DB-9" connector but rather a DE-9.
Is the connector a DC shell with pin spacing increased from the standard 62 pin pitch? Or
is it a DC-62 with some positions left unused? A picture would be interesting.
paul