iOpener

From: Richard Erlacher <edick_at_idcomm.com>
Date: Mon Mar 20 14:13:45 2000

Do any of you fellows know of a ready/reasonable source of the 44-conductor
connectors and cables used with notebook drives? I believe the spacing of
the connector pins is 2mm. I need a limited about of this stuff and a few
of the IDC connectors to be used at each end of the cable. The adapter I
have for this drive type has a typical HD power connector on it along with
an inline pc-mount connector that would also be of interest.

Any suggestions?

Dick

-----Original Message-----
From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, March 20, 2000 12:19 PM
Subject: Re: iOpener


>On Mon, Mar 20, 2000 at 09:13:56AM -0800, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> There's great hack running around where you take a regular 44-pin cable
>> that's long enough and attach a second connector immediately adjacent to
>> the connector on one end. You use the inner pins of the end connector
>> and the outer pins on the new connector to attach to the motherboard.
>>
>> -------------------
>> || ||||
>> ^^ (use these "pins")
>> drive end motherboard end
>
>Cute! Well that sure beats slicing the cable up into 22 pairs and trying
to
>get them stay down in the "twisted" position while you put on a connector.
>
>> ||
>> --------------------
>> ||
>>
>> Wouldn't that simulate having a connector on the wrong side and reverse
>> the effect of the motherboard wiring?
>
>Unfortunately not, IDC connectors don't work that way. You'll just tap the
>same wires in different places, it's as if you took a regular cable and
just
>folded one end over, nothing has changed. I remember confusing the hell
out
>of myself with this the first time I tried to get a DZ11A cab kit
working...
>
>> AFAIK, there is no ready source of 12V. Also, consider the power draw.
A
>> laptop drive pulls 500-700mA (2,5-3.5W), a desktop drive draws closer to
>> 9W-15W. It's even a consideration when choosing a different
>> CPU (ISTR the WinChip180 is rated at ~9W, most Pentia suck around
13-17W).
>
>Yeah actually I was wondering if the laptop drive is already pushing
things.
>The power supply is really tiny (integrated on the main board) and it's
>powered by a puny wall wart transformer, the label says 81VA but even
that's
>hard to imagine given how light it is.
>
>> ObClassic: there's plenty of space on the flash disk to stick a small OS
>> and a variety of apps including Kermit.
>
>I was thinking, making a PCMCIA flash card adapter for the 44-pin cable
>wouldn't be hard at all, that might be another easy way to get stuff in
>and out.
>
>> If you hacked the flash and disabled
>> the hard disk (or had a way to specify the boot order), you could bring
it
>> up by default into a terminal program and use it as a console if it
weren't
>> running some other app. Yes, a dumb terminal is cheaper and probably
more
>> VT100 compliant (double-high characters spring to mind immediately), but
a
>> real DEC terminal is not as portable.
>
>Yeah I *wish* someone was making ASCII terminals like this box, it's
perfect
>for one, at least part time. But the box has too much potential to
actually
>*dedicate* your only one as being just a small/light VT100 replacement,
which
>is sort of a shame.
>
>But I figure, even if the Netpliance folks close the loophole (which seems
>inevitable given all the press it's gotten) and we can't buy these boxes
for
>$99.95 for much longer, the regular users will get tired of them eventually
>and there will be piles of them on eBay in a year or two, probably for even
>less than the $99.95. *That* will be the perfect time to put one on every
>flat surface in the whole house! Meanwhile, gotta get an order out to
Digikey.
>
>John Wilson
>D Bit
Received on Mon Mar 20 2000 - 14:13:45 GMT