Re: Dead serial ports?

[carbide@egine.com]

A.J. wrote:
> I went on a limb and took apart the Mac modem cable.  After all, it
was
> a custom-built cable (a detail that I left out of this discussion).
I
> found out that the DB25 pins were connected very incorrectly.  Pin 1
> was connected, which I don't even know what is for, and pins 5 and 6
> were omitted.  I also noticed that only 6 of the 8 lines from the
> mini-DIN cable were connected.  This certainly wasn't a high-speed
> modem cable of any standard configuration.
>
> I will follow the well-known IIGS high-speed modem cable pinouts and
> solder this thing myself.  Hopefully, it'll be correct this time.
>
> Aren't cables fun? :(
>

They certainly can be. I made my own null modem cables.
I made one for my IIgs's by starting with a Mac printer cable. I cut
one end off, stripped the wires, and used a continuity checker to find
which wire went to which pin on the mini-din. Then soldered the
appropriate wires to a DB-9 to connect to my PC.

It's pretty difficult to solder on those mini-dins, so by starting with
a printer cable you don't have to.

You should be able to get it working now. There are a surprizing number
of variations on how to wire up serial cables, so if at first you don't
succeed, try again. 
-Paul