Help me identify this Commodore cable... I think...

[Dripfree]

Just found this at goodwill for a buck... I think it's for a C 64. It fits anyway. I was hoping someone could enlighten me as to what it's purpose is. If it is for a C 64 it is obviously to link it in parallel to a more modern pc, but then what.

[+OLD CS1]

Given the pins on the DB connector, it looks like it is a user port RS-232/C adapter.

[Dripfree]

But what can be done with it? I built an sio2pc connector for my Atari 800xl. I had hoped to build an equivalent for my C64. With some research I found it wasn't as simple for the Commodore. Is it for a printer or modem or something?

[BigO]

RS232 was the standard means of connecting a modem to a computer for, like, ever.

 

Same serial connection was often used for printers.

 

Could be used to communicate with a scale, a cash drawer, darn near anything. Could talk to a Christmas light controller, an alarm system, etc.

 

A better question might be, "What do you want to do with it?"

[Dripfree]

RS232 was the standard means of connecting a modem to a computer for, like, ever.

Same serial connection was often used for printers.

Could be used to communicate with a scale, a cash drawer, darn near anything. Could talk to a Christmas light controller, an alarm system, etc.

A better question might be, "What do you want to do with it?"

That makes sense. I was thinking this may be for something very specific. I was hoping there might be a way to emulate a floppy drive that I missed. I didn't even know if it was for a c64 when I picked it up. I just started checking my vintage computer collection when I got home. I stopped when I got to my c64 cuz it fit.

[TMR]

I was hoping there might be a way to emulate a floppy drive that I missed.

Disk drive emulators connect through the IEC serial port (SD2IEC and variants, usually drawing power from the tape or parallel port as well), cartridge port (Turbo Chameleon, MMC64, IDE64 i think) or both (1541 Ultimate series).

[carlsson]

Not only that, if you've got an old DOS PC you could use a XE1541 cable to connect the IEC port to the PC's parallel port and run the software 64HDD that will make the PC act like a slave drive. It should work for single filed programs, but just like the SD2IEC solutions the software on the PC side doesn't have the capacity to entirely emulate a 1541 so programs installing their own fastloaders in the drive would fail. I know there was at least one advanced PC solution that turned it into a full 1541 emulator but it would keep the PC in a busy loop, polling the parallel port and I think the software never was finished in a state stable enough to be used for production. As newer PC's moved to Windows, eventually getting rid of the parallel port and many years later devices like 1541 Ultimate series arrived, the desire to allocate a first generation Pentium PC as a near perfect 1541 emulator seems to have subsided.

 

I don't know if the cable you found is possible to use, but you could solder up your own custom cable to use software like PRLINK or CBMLINK to connect the C64 to a PC, for direct file transfers rather than emulating a floppy drive. The software in the C2N232 series builds upon this, though that device connects to the tape port instead of the userport.

 

(Perhaps this thread should live in the Commodore sub section, in case a moderator stops by and wishes to move it)