Storing cables

That's not a bad idea :-). Although it won't work for me becuase just about al lthe walls here are covered in bookshelves (no, replacing those boosk with e-books is not an option). Yes, that was a second quesito nthat I forgot last night -- identifyign the cables. Some are obvious (a mains plug to IEC 320 socket is going to e wired the normal way, a BNC to RCA phono plug is also obvious [1]. But a DB25 to DB25 could be one of dozens of wirelists [2]. Perhaps I should put a number on each cable and keep a book of the wirelists (and hope I don't loose the book) :-)). [1] FOr ome unknown reason that cable grows legs. They're commonly needed around here to connect compostie monitors to various amchines, and I must have made at least 20 over the years. I can never find one when I need it. [2] Worse 'craqy wirelist' I came across. A VGA (or so) monitor with a DE15 socket on the back for the video input. It was supplied with a cabvel with DE15 plugs on each end. What nobody told me was that the DE15 on the monitor did not have the normal 'VGA' pinout, the cable was cross-connected so the other end would plug into a VGA socket. The only differnce between the 2 ends of the cable was that the isulation between the pins (not the moulded plug hood, but the bit inside the metal shell was black at one end, white at the other. That led me a merry dance... Of course for some cables you may need several at the same time. The obvious oen is mains 'kettle leads', if you want to power up the machine, monitor, disk drive unit, logic analyser, etc. I often need 3 or 4 HPIB cables at th same time too. -tony