FT1000MP Comp Interface

[Bill Coleman AA4LR]

>Does no one in Japan own a computer or what?  Why would you make the DB-9 on
>the back of the FT1000MP a male connector?

IBM did this. Their original serial connectors used male DB-25s. When they
went to the IBM AT and the Serial/Parallel cards, they continued the
tradition with male DB-9s.

Although typical usage was to have only female DB-25s (and hence DB-9s)
there was a little-used clause in the RS-232 standard stating that DTEs
should use male connectors and DCEs female. This was fine for printers and
modems, but practically no one followed it.

>I'm in the computer business and
>I don't have a male to male serial cable in my entire inventory at work or
>at home.  Now I get to go buy some kind of clunky gender changer.

I suppose they have it wired up as a DTE (ie, like the computer). This
means you have to have a null modem, in addition to the gender change.

Now, if they wired it up like a DCE, then that is truely weird.

I'll be glad when everything moves to FireWire and we can abandon all this
rot for hermaphroditic connectors.


Bill Coleman, AA4LR, AA96LR      Mail: aa4lr@radio.org
Quote: "Not in a thousand years will man ever fly!"
            -- Wilbur Wright, 1901