Teal VGA cable?

[JOhnH]

I'm sorting through a couple of boxes of cables and parts that I have collected over the years. I have a cable with a couple of D9 connectors (1 male, 1 female). It looks exactly like a VGA cable but the moulding is teal colored and I thought VGA cables were always blue. Anybody know what this is?

 

[Old Geek]

It's prolly a VGA extension cable. VGA cables have a male connector on each end.

 

[flyingron]

A VGA cable has 15 pin D connectors on it.

A 9 pin cable might be an ancient CGA cable or it could be an old PC serial cable.

 

[John221us]

A VGA cable has 15 pin D connectors on it.

A 9 pin cable might be an ancient CGA cable or it could be an old PC serial cable.

Yes, it is probably a serial cable (RS232). It could be a NULL Modem cable, often used as a management cable for switches and routers (still used today, though not that often), which is a type of serial cable with different pinouts.

 

[Kelvin]

VGA cables come in many colors.

Sounds like a serial cable of some sort...

 

[dmspilot]

I thought VGA cables were always blue.

Not sure when exactly, but they weren't always color coded. I think it started in the late 90s or early 2000s. It could be a VGA cable, just old.

 

[John221us]

Not sure when exactly, but they weren't always color coded. I think it started in the late 90s or early 2000s. It could be a VGA cable, just old.

Not with nine pins. It could be CGA as mentioned, but then we are talking early 90's at the latest.

Edit: at the end of the day, even it was originally for CGA, which I doubt, a straight through nine pin cable is a serial cable and can be used as such.

 

[Archammer]

It's an old serial keyboard/mouse cable. Your computer used to come with a Green cable for your keyboard and a purple one for your mouse. Then the back of your motherboard was color matched so you put the right one in the right hole. hehe

That cable goes way back!

 

[denverpilot]

Most of the teal/light blue cables I've seen are Cisco console cables.

[edit: I had to explain to one of our young developers last week what a console port was for and why network gear has them... sigh...]

 

[flyingron]

PC Keyboards had a DIN style plug on them and then switched to the PS-2 style (a small round version). They never had D connectors.

Early PC's didn't come with mice, so the early mice often plugged into the serial port, sot hat is a possibility with the 9 pin cable. Again the later ones used the PS-2 connectors.

 

[Archammer]

PC Keyboards had a DIN style plug on them and then switched to the PS-2 style (a small round version). They never had D connectors.

Early PC's didn't come with mice, so the early mice often plugged into the serial port, sot hat is a possibility with the 9 pin cable. Again the later ones used the PS-2 connectors.

HUH?? What early personal computers didn't come with a mouse??? I don't know anyone who had a Simon, a Xerox or earlier computer in their home. I mean, if you want to go back to the 70's and start talking about business machines like a Commodore PET, ok, no mouse, but that wasn't in a household environment either. Those were business machines (IBM) and word processors.

Every personal computer from the Apple II, IBM PC & up has and always will have some type of screen point device or interface. I even think that Tandy 3000, Radio Shack POS had a little clicker.

 

[jsstevens]

HUH?? What early personal computers didn't come with a mouse??? I don't know anyone who had a Simon, a Xerox or earlier computer in their home other than people like Steve Jobs. I mean, if you want to go back to the 70's and start talking about business machines like a Commodore, ok, no mouse, but that wasn't in a household environment either.

Every personal computer from the Apple II, IBM PC & up has and always will have some type of screen point device or interface.

Um, no.

Apple Macintosh was the first widely used computer with a mouse. Apple II, IBM PC, IBM AT and the multitude of clones did not. GUIs were not common on IBM clones until Windows 3 came out in the early '90s. That's when mice became common.

Dang! I'm getting old.

John


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Archammer]

Um, no.

Apple Macintosh was the first widely used computer with a mouse. Apple II, IBM PC, IBM AT and the multitude of clones did not. GUIs were not common on IBM clones until Windows 3 came out in the early '90s. That's when mice became common.

Dang! I'm getting old.

John


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Ummm, yes. My second computer, a 1987 Apple II GS was WYSIWYG with a serial pin mouse and a dot matrix printer. I guess my memory hasn't faded as much as yours YET. What's really crazy is, that I'm sure I have some of those old 8" floppies in a box somewhere.

I completely forgot that I had this photo online too, so here's the proof! The mouse is on the desk... well dresser...whatever, I thought I was pretty cool. And yes, I'm showing the Commissioner the top 2 drawers that aren't filled with clothes, but software boxes that had 1400 disks each just to run them! I'm also fairly confident that those are Z.Cavaricci cargo pants I'm wearing..

 

[denverpilot]

The IIGS had a mouse available after the Mac 1 had it first.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Apple_Inc._products

Numerous PCs were available prior to that (including Apple I, II) that only had joysticks, if anything at all.

By the time the IIGS came out there were a few tablets for drawing at $$$$ prices.

But IIGS was fairly late in the PC revolution. Last of the traditional a Apple lineup. (I don't count III/Lisa as even having existed. Ha. Dead before it hit the market and Jobs knew it, and Woz returned from his Bonanza crash to find Jobs had put Lisa and Mac teams at each other's throats anyway.

I was messing with Tandy stuff years before IIGS came out.

We had a group of three of us that lived near each other, I was the budget guy who's family had a Tandy Model III doing the books for stepdad's business (Fall 1980) and therefore I ended up with a Tandy Color Computer Model I as my hacking tool (Christmas 1982), kid 2 had a dad working for government who had a real IBM PC and later clones, and kid 3 was around the corner and started on an Apple II, went to Apple IIe, and eventually IIGS.

A fourth latecomer started at Apple IIc. And later friends had Ataris and Commodores of various flavors.

None had mice.

I still have the original Motorola 6809E processor from the CoCo I at my desk at work. It's been used as a small paperweight and conversation piece for years. Pins are all bent to hell and I'm sure it died a million deaths by static discharge by now, but for some reason it seemed important to pull it out of the socket and keep it, many moons ago when the CoCo died.

http://www.trs-80.com/wordpress/trs-80-computer-line/timeline/

 

[flyingron]

Every personal computer from the Apple II, IBM PC & up has and always will have some type of screen point device or interface. I even think that Tandy 3000, Radio Shack POS had a little clicker.

Absolute bullpoop. None of the original IBM PC's (PC, XT, AT) had a mouse or even know what do do with it. DOS has no clue. For a few apps or the early wnidows, you had to plug the mouse into one of the COM ports.

The Apple II didn't have one either. It had a JOY STICK port on the mother board but there was zero support for the mouse.

 

[poadeleted21]

Um, no.

Apple Macintosh was the first widely used computer with a mouse. Apple II, IBM PC, IBM AT and the multitude of clones did not. GUIs were not common on IBM clones until Windows 3 came out in the early '90s. That's when mice became common.

Dang! I'm getting old.

John


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

My commodore didn't come with a mouse nor did the first couple,of DOS based PCs I had. I recall typing commands into Leisure Suit Larry.

 

[jsstevens]

Ummm, yes. My second computer, a 1987 Apple II GS was WYSIWYG with a serial pin mouse and a dot matrix printer. I guess my memory hasn't faded as much as yours YET. What's really crazy is, that I'm sure I have some of those old 8" floppies in a box somewhere.

I completely forgot that I had this photo online too, so here's the proof! The mouse is on the desk... well dresser...whatever, I thought I was pretty cool. And yes, I'm showing the Commissioner the top 2 drawers that aren't filled with clothes, but software boxes that had 1400 disks each just to run them! I'm also fairly confident that those are Z.Cavaricci cargo pants I'm wearing..

Yes, your Apple IIGS had a mouse in 1987. The original Mac came out in 1984. The IBM PC came out in 1980 (or 81), with the AT in 1984ish. Apple I, II, II+ and IIC predate your IIGS which was the end of the II line (and internally not very much like the Apple II that came before it). So my memory is not as faded as you think. I was writing software professionally on all these platforms in the early 80s.

IBM PC/AT & clones (and their decendants) dominated the business market by a wide margin (and still do). Macs were for artsy types. IIGS was a recreational computer (nothing wrong with that, just not a business computer). So I stand by my assertion that mice were not common until Windows 3 started taking over the desktop. IBM PS/2 did have a mouse port built in so it could run OS/2. But that was also in the early '90s.

Where did you grow up? The name Betty Castor is familiar and I grew up (and still live) in central Florida.

John

 

[Archammer]

I was in Inverness Florida at that time. She was Education Commissioner from maybe 86 to the mid 90's. She was at our school pretty regularly, and was very gung-ho about computers, which made me happy back then.

I'll let the rest of this debate die, because I'm still fairly confident that he has an old teal mouse or keyboard cable, which is what this entire conversation was supposed to be about.

Hopefully you found a use for it, or chucked it in the garbage.

 

[JOhnH]

I was in Inverness Florida at that time. She was Education Commissioner from maybe 86 to the mid 90's. She was at our school pretty regularly, and was very gung-ho about computers, which made me happy back then.

I'll let the rest of this debate die, because I'm still fairly confident that he has an old teal mouse or keyboard cable, which is what this entire conversation was supposed to be about.

Hopefully you found a use for it, or chucked it in the garbage.

Based on the responses I got, I offered it to a museum. When they finished laughing I put it on top of my trash can by the curb and it was gone in 5 minutes. The trash is still there.