iOpener

From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
Date: Tue Mar 21 00:49:50 2000

On Mon, Mar 20, 2000 at 09:32:14PM -0700, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> So, John, did you find they were back-ordered on the ribbon cable? Since
> I'm in no hurry, perhaps it doesn't make much difference. You're right
> about the suitability of 50-conductor ribbon, though.

Guh! I'm sorry, yes the ribbon cable was what I meant. Digikey is out
of the AM44G-x-ND cable (which was 10' for $5.68), but they do have the
MC44L-x-ND (which is 5m for $34.58!!! definitely worth waiting the week if
you can stand it). The AMP 50-conductor cable would be AM50G-x-ND (where
x is length in feet, 5/10/25/50/100/500), but when I called back to try to
change, my order had already gone out, so I didn't press them to find out
whether it's in stock. Since it requires a human to cut it to order, the
web site automatically lists it as back-ordered whether it's in stock or
not.

They have the 44-pin IDC connectors too. The AMP is ASA44K-ND for $3.54,
the 3M is MSA44A-ND for $4.47. Hard to tell from the sketches, but the
3Ms look to be smaller, which would be a good thing since the iOpener is
so cramped inside.

I deleted an earlier post before its Deep Inner Beauty sunk in, who was
it that suggested switching the conductors by simply using two separate
ribbon cables with a straight-through header between them? I like it!
(Trying to figure out whether it would work makes my head hurt, but I think
you're right.) Looks like a regular through-hole PCB header might even work,
the solder tail end is only 0.85 mm shorter than the business end, according
to the sketches in the Digikey catalog.

Really stupid question: there's no BIOS support yet to make USB devices
bootable, is there? Using a USB Zip as the system disk would sure save
some trouble here, if only they weren't such a pain to program...

John Wilson
D Bit
Received on Tue Mar 21 2000 - 00:49:50 GMT