14 Oct
2008
14 Oct
'08
2:25 p.m.
Brad Parker said:
This is something I've never seen before; I'm
trying to revive an old
dead Compaq for a friend of a friend.
I went to plug in a stock VGA cable (15 pin) and it would not go. The
connector on the Dell motherboard (this is a very very old 386) has one
pin blocked.
Someone here must know what that means; what do I do? grab the needle
nose and hack my cable?
The VGA connector specification shows that Pin 9 is not connected and sometimes used as a
key, that is, blocked, see:
http://pinouts.ru/Video/VGA15_pinout.shtml
I doubt it would hurt any future use of the cable to pull/break the pin on your monitor
cable, but if you want to keep that side of things stock, you could use a 1/32" bit
and drill out the position on the motherboard's connector, to allow the pin to pass
through the plastic.
- Jared
14 Oct
14 Oct
5:35 p.m.
J Blaser wrote:
I doubt it would hurt any future use of the cable to
pull/break the
pin on your monitor cable, but if you want to keep that side of
things stock, you could use a 1/32" bit and drill out the position on
the motherboard's connector, to allow the pin to pass through the
plastic.
Well a 386 may not count as vintage yet (or ever ...) but isn't it more
in keeping with the spirit of what we do here to hack, twist and bend
the modern to fit in with the old, where possible? Shouldn't the OP pull
a pin on a common or garden cable rather than drill a mobo connector?
Antonio
6 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Antonio Carlini" <arcarlini at iee.org>
To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 3:35 PM
Subject: RE: old 386 pc, vga port - but one pin is blocked?
Well a 386 may not count as vintage yet (or ever ...)
but isn't it more
in keeping with the spirit of what we do here to hack, twist and bend
the modern to fit in with the old, where possible? Shouldn't the OP pull
a pin on a common or garden cable rather than drill a mobo connector?
I don't think it's a bad idea. Drilling the pin means modern cables (for
the forseeable future at least) will fit the machine. If the machine is in
pristine collectible condition, then I might be more prone to modifying a
cable instead, but modifying the plug on the machine will be far more
convenient.
Is the goal to keep the machine original and collectible, or to make it
usable? The goals are somewhat at odds.
Jim
15 Oct
15 Oct
1:45 p.m.
Well a 386 may
not count as vintage yet (or ever ...) but isn't it more
in keeping with the spirit of what we do here to hack, twist and bend
the modern to fit in with the old, where possible? Shouldn't the OP pull
a pin on a common or garden cable rather than drill a mobo connector?
I don't think it's a bad idea. Drilling the pin means modern cables (for
the forseeable future at least) will fit the machine. If the machine is in
pristine collectible condition, then I might be more prone to modifying a
cable instead, but modifying the plug on the machine will be far more
convenient.
Is the goal to keep the machine original and collectible, or to make it
usable? The goals are somewhat at odds. 
14 Oct
14 Oct
6:38 p.m.
On Tue, 14 Oct 2008, Antonio Carlini wrote:
Well a 386 may not count as vintage yet (or ever ...)
but isn't it more
in keeping with the spirit of what we do here to hack, twist and bend
the modern to fit in with the old, where possible? Shouldn't the OP pull
a pin on a common or garden cable rather than drill a mobo connector?
Why?
By drilling out the unused position of the connector, he makes it more
versatile in which cables it can connect with. No longer will he be
limited to male cables in which the unused pin has been removed.
'course I don't see any problem with drilling out the 16 keys of a DB9.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
5760
days inactive
5761
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
arcarlini＠iee.org -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
jim＠photojim.ca -
oldcpu2＠rogerwilco.org