28 Nov
2000
28 Nov
'00
4:58 a.m.
I'm trying to think of any interface on the Mac
that is in any sense
'standard'. And no, I can't think of one...
Well, I'd posit that Apple _set_ standards instead of following them. For example, Apple's use of a DB-25 for a
SCSI port and the pinout
they chose has been copied widely throughout the industry.
YEs, but the 50 pin SCSI standards have the advantage that there's a
ground wire between the signal wires if you use stnadard ribbon cable.
That's _why_ a 50 pin connector was originally chosen. The DB25 is thus
technically inferior.... More
conventionally, the serial ports follow normal pinouts, even
though they're electrically RS-422 instead of RS-232C.
Eh? The Mac serial ports are 8 pin Mini-DIN on almost all Macs I've seen. That was not a standard at the time, and is only a
de-facto standard now.
The original Mac and Mac 512k used DE9 seiral ports, with a pinout
different to everyone else (and yes, there _were_ 9 pin serial ports
about when the Mac was introduced).
Until I started working here, I'd seen more 128k, 512k, and 512KE Macs
than any other models. YMMV, etc.
And as someone
else pointed out, Mac power cords fit just about
any computer device from the PC era forwards.
And just about any other electronic device...