Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!athertn!ericb
From: ericb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Eric Black)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: RS232 indignation
Message-ID: <161@teak.athertn.Atherton.COM>
Date: 12 Jan 88 23:26:20 GMT
References: <2292@crash.cts.com> <156@teak.athertn.Atherton.COM> <526@nuchat.UUCP>
Reply-To: ericb@teak.Atherton.COM (Eric Black)
Organization: Atherton Technology, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 45

In article <526@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>There is a company that makes connectors that convert from DB25 connectors
>to (I think 8-pin) phone jacks. The cables are symmetrical, so you can plug
>anything into anything. The name is something like Western Digital or
>California Digital or something like that.

This company is:
	Nevada Western
	930 Maude Ave.
	Sunnyvale, CA  94086
	(408) 737-1600

I heartily recommend them!

They make modular (phone-style) patch panels, cables, coax-to-twisted-pair
baluns, all sorts of neat stuff.  I used the modular panels for
wiring up computer rooms and offices in one of my "previous lives".
Any terminal or computer could talk to any other, just by patching at
the panel, with either a straight-through or a crossed patch cable.
The trick is to note that the modular connectors use flat-ish cable,
and a half-twist crosses over pairs of signals, if you select the
conductors correctly.

This "trick" is essentially a more modern version of the one I
described in my previous article about RS-232 "standardization" of
cables and pinouts, using phone-style modular connectors instead
of DB25's.  We didn't have ready access to those more convenient
connectors in 1978, though -- they were still pretty much confined
to TPC.

Another advantage of their use of these now-ubiquitous connectors
is that vanilla TPC 25-pair cables (with Amphenol connectors) can be
used to connect quantities of tty lines in different locations quite
conveniently; the patch panels take Amphenol-terminated cables.
Connections to the computer tty lines are made with "spider" cables
with 25-pair connectors on one end and multiple DB25's on the other.

DISCLAIMER: I have no connection whatever to Nevada Western, other
than being on their mailing list because I convinced my employer to
purchase their products a few years ago, with good results.

-- 
Eric Black	"Garbage in, Gospel out"
   UUCP:	{sun!sunncal,hpda}!athertn!ericb
   Domainist:	ericb@Atherton.COM