50 pin SCSI to 50 pin centronics

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Wed Apr 11 21:15:16 2001

>Billy D'Augustine wrote:

> I have an external SCSI drive, which I want to connect to the external SCSI
> port of my VAX 4000/60. The SCSI drive has a 50 pin connector. The VAX has a
> 50 pin centronics female. I'd like a cable to go between the two.

Jerome Fine replies:

With all the comments about the types of centronics cables, did you find the
cable you want?

If not, I might be able to help, but you still have not specified the computer
end of the cable carefully enough. I assume that if both ends of the cable
were the same (50 pin centronics male - i.e. the external drive has the normal
50 pin centronics female), you would have said so. This type of cable is
almost always used to connect two external drives to each other and extend
the SCSI daisy chain since most external SCSI drives have two 50 pin
centronics female connectors. If hope that what I have said is not confusing.

I have a number of external Sony SMO S501 magneto optical drives and
one one occasion I wanted to connect four drives to the host adapter in the
computer. The cable to the first drive has a 50 pin centronics male connector
at the external drive end. The extension cable has two 50 pin centronics
connectors - one at each end - and is used to connect the first external drive
to the second external drive. Two more of these double ended cables (50 pin
centronics male at both ends) are then used to connect the 3rd and 4th external
drives.

The only cable that is different is the cable with the end attached to the host adapter.
Since this is not a closed up system (the side panels are always off), I just used
a cable with a 50 pin female header on the end and attached it directly to the
SCSI host adapter in the computer what has a 50 pin male header connection.

What you have not specified thus far is what the VAX connection consists of!
I presume it is a 50 pin connection. Is it centronics? Male or female? Is it a
header? Male or female? Is it something else. On most systems where a direct
connection is made to the host adapter (which often has a 50 pin male header
connection on the host adapter), a flat cable is used. If you need a shielded
round cable, you also need to specify that aspect as well. I am not trying to
be picky, but I can think of about 12 different cables that have a 50 pin male
centronics at one end and something else at the other end. Do you think you
could let us know exactly what you are looking for?

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
Received on Wed Apr 11 2001 - 21:15:16 BST