27 May
2005
27 May
'05
12:52 a.m.
On the parallel port side of things, I suppose it
might have toasted
something. No great loss there though. Grr to Cycle for not providing
labels to stick over the back of the case to warn that what's labelled
as a serial port actually isn't on their boards! (I suppose this is one
time where the PC standard of using male sockets for serial ports would
have made things obvious too)
The _correct_ standard is to use a male DB25 for a DTE (terminal) and a
female one for a DCE (modem). The old way to rememebr that (and I am
showing my age now) is that Ma Bell is female, and that's where you
rented the modem from. The practical reason was you bought the terminal
but rented the modem, so any bent pins were on the bit you owned and were
thus not free repairs :-)
You can moan at IBM for using a DB25 for the parallel port rather than a
36 pin Blue Ribbon connector....
-tony