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From: ford@crash.CTS.COM (Michael Ditto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A2000 serial port != A1000 (ackkkk!)(and 500 || <> 1000 ||)
Message-ID: <1903@crash.CTS.COM>
Date: Sat, 24-Oct-87 15:48:36 EST
Article-I.D.: crash.1903
Posted: Sat Oct 24 15:48:36 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 26-Oct-87 05:59:47 EST
References: <1962@ucbcad.berkeley.edu> <610@louie.udel.EDU> <2548@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: ford@crash.CTS.COM (Michael Ditto)
Organization: Crash TS, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 50
Summary: IBM sets the microcomputer world back yet again.

In article <2548@cbmvax.UUCP> <someone who I won't name because it's
				probably not his fault> writes:
>The serial cable is now in reasonable confomance with EIA RS232 standards
>and should cause no major problems with any normal piece of data communications
>equipment, even when using the dreaded 25-conductor cable!

This is an improvement.  Since all A1000 cables should only have had a few
pins connected anyway, this is well worth the changes to the pin assignments
of the non-standard signals.  But there was *NO* reason to change the gender
of the connector [except that that's the way ibm-pcs have them].


>Seriously, we agonized over this quite a bit, but decided that using standard
>cables that would be readily available would be of benefit to the users in
>the long run.

Anyone who thinks that (IBM == STANDARD) doesn't deserve to be working with
modern technology like Amigas.  When IBM made the PC they didn't know
anything about microcomputers.  Commodore engineers do.  If there ever is
a time to succumb to IBM-"compatibility", this isn't it.

>With the old arrangement, you had to either hope your dealer
>would stock the special Amiga cable or know which pins to cut to make it
>work.  

This was due to the pin arrangement and the non-standard signals, NOT the
gender of the connector.  Do you know how many Radio Shack stores there
are in the world?  Every one of them carries the standard male-to-male 25-
pin serial cable, and has since around 1979.  The standard has always been
for devices to have female connectors and cables to have male connectors.

Anyway, there's no point in crying over spilled milk.  Anyone who has a
collection of RS-232 devices and cables just has to add the cost of a
gender reverser to the cost of the A2000 system.

By the way, an easy way to 'standardize' an A1000's serial port is to buy
two solder-type db25 connectors (one male and one female) and solder them
back-to-back with some half-inch lengths of bare wire.  This is very easy
to do if you use the connectors with the hollow pins.  Just insert the wires
into pins 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 20, and 21, and solder.  Then the A1000
is as standard as an RS-232 device ever gets.  Unfortunately, this trick
will not work on backwards connectors like the A2000's

I'll bet you all can tell I've just hooked up my A2000, can't you?  8-)

-- 

Mike Ditto					-=] Ford [=-
P.O. Box 1721					ford%kenobi@crash.CTS.COM
Bonita, CA 92002				ford@crash.CTS.COM