I'm not so
sure about that. Very often in setting up a vintage computer
you'll need a special cable (RS232 serial cables being an obvious
example, there are all sorts of odd pin-swaps you need for some
machines...), and it makes a lot of sense to be abe to make it up. You
can't always buy the right cable off-the-shelf, particularly not for
obscure classics.
I'd *still* like to someday get my hands on one of the fancier breakout b=
oxes=20
I used to see in catalogs... :-)
How fancy is fancy? I've got one here that does Bit-Error-Rate test, and
anohter that will do RS232-current loop conversions, RS232 to parallel
conversions, test RS232, current loop, or parallel devices, and even
program EPROMs. Oh, it's got a little strip-printer built in too.
-tony