What kind of a cable connector is this?

[AmberClad]

Yes, yes, I know, my geek creds should be revoked for this question . Feel free to point and laugh.

Anyways, I found this old GPS unit lying around. The cable for it doesn't match any of the ports on my computer. The connector looks very similar to a VGA port -- five holes on the top row, four holes on the bottom row. What the heck is this?

 

[olds]

Sounds like DB9

 

[AmberClad]

Does seem to match the pics I found for "DB9" with Google Image Search (although...only a few of the pics were of computer cables -- the rest were all pics of Aston Martins ). Thanks.

So I take it this is a legacy port then. Ugh, looks like I'll be needing a USB adapter if I wanted to get this thing working.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
Does seem to match the pics I found for "DB9" with Google Image Search (although...only a few of the pics were of computer cables -- the rest were all pics of Aston Martins ). Thanks.

So I take it this is a legacy port then. Ugh, looks like I'll be needing a USB adapter if I wanted to get this thing working.

Yup, it's an old school serial cable. You can try the USB adapter, but you won't be guaranteed success. I've heard they can be picky depending on what kind of component you're trying to connect it to. I have an old data collector that I want to try one of those adapters on. The office computers have serial ports for now, but I want to be able to hook it to my laptop.

 

[AmberClad]

Gah, so it's a serial port. I was wondering why I hadn't heard of the term "DB9" before.

Did they start phasing these ports out at some point? Or is it still normal to find them? I have an IGP board...I wonder if they put the extra VGA port where a serial port would normally be. They sure look like the exact same size and shape.

 

[Zepper]

You can still get PCI serial port cards. They are more likely to work than the USB adapter cable, but no guarantees either way. If the software is designed to look for the specific legacy hardware port (address and IRQ), then you may be SOL. However, if the software can find the port by name (like COM1 or COM2) and doesn't care about the hardware details, then you'll have better luck.

.bh.

 

[AmberClad]

That seems like more trouble than it's worth, especially considering it's not guaranteed to work. Thanks for the suggestion though. I have a few old computers and laptops lying around, one of them might have a serial port.

 

[lxskllr]

I think last year is when the oems really started phasing them out. My P5W DH Deluxe has one though. Look for a symbol next to the port. A VGA connector has a monitor looking thing as a symbol, a serial port has something else, that I can't quite remember atm.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think last year is when the oems really started phasing them out. My P5W DH Deluxe has one though. Look for a symbol next to the port. A VGA connector has a monitor looking thing as a symbol, a serial port has something else, that I can't quite remember atm.

This?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think last year is when the oems really started phasing them out. My P5W DH Deluxe has one though. Look for a symbol next to the port. A VGA connector has a monitor looking thing as a symbol, a serial port has something else, that I can't quite remember atm.

This?

Yup, that's it :thumbsup:

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think last year is when the oems really started phasing them out. My P5W DH Deluxe has one though. Look for a symbol next to the port. A VGA connector has a monitor looking thing as a symbol, a serial port has something else, that I can't quite remember atm.

Wouldn't the serial port have pins sticking out of it, instead of holes like a VGA port? At least, I'm assuming that, based on the fact that the cable for this thing has holes on the connector instead of pins.

EDIT: Looks like my question already got answered. Thanks .

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: AmberClad

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I think last year is when the oems really started phasing them out. My P5W DH Deluxe has one though. Look for a symbol next to the port. A VGA connector has a monitor looking thing as a symbol, a serial port has something else, that I can't quite remember atm.

Wouldn't the serial port have pins sticking out of it, instead of holes like a VGA port? At least, I'm assuming that, based on the fact that the cable for this thing has holes on the connector instead of pins.

That's absolutely right. In addition to that a VGA port has more than 9 pins. It's been awhile since I've seen one. I had an attack of the stupids If you have a connector that has 9 pins it'll be a serial port. VGA and serial are the only ones to use that shape to the best of my memory. Of course we've seen how good that is in this thread

 

[AmberClad]

While I'm on the topic of stupid port-related questions :laugh:...what exactly is the purpose of those two S/PDIF ports? One of them has a tiny swinging door on it . And why are parallel ports still around if manufacturers are doing away with serial ports?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
While I'm on the topic of stupid port-related questions :laugh:...what exactly is the purpose of those two S/PDIF ports? One of them has a tiny swinging door on it . And why are parallel ports still around if manufacturers are doing away with serial ports?

I'm not sure about the S/PDIF ports. It's for digital speaker hookup afaik. I have cheap 5.1s though, so I never had to worry about using them. I'm not sure parallel ports are still around. My mb doesn't have one even though I have a serial port. I guess it's just a design decision.

 

[AmberClad]

Looks like I have a parallel port, but no serial. And you have a serial, but no parallel. I'm thinking they probably just randomly pick a "filler" legacy port to put on the IO panel :roll:.

 

[Zepper]

Back at the time, the video cards (monochrome and CGA) had DB9 female connectors so they used DB9 male for the serial ports as a sort of dummy-proofing. Prior to that serial ports had DB25 male (as the parallel port used DB25 female) for dummy proofing. The purists weren't happy when IBM started using the DB9M for serial so they could fit more ports on a card slot bracket. Almost nothing really needed all the handshaking options of a 25-pin connector anyway.

Hope you enjoyed the trivia session...

.bh.

 

[corkyg]

A few years ago, serial ports and their standard DB9 connectors were replaces by USB ports. There are converters that allow DB9 to connect to USB.

I have a GPS module that has a serial connector. I replaced it with one that has a USB connector.

As for pins vs. holes, there arer DB9 gender changers that can fix that.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: AmberClad
And why are parallel ports still around if manufacturers are doing away with serial ports?

Serial devices disappeared fairly quickly, but many printers that use parallel are still in use. People tend to hang on to printers until they die, which for low-usage printers can be quite a while. As long as the printer keeps printing, most people will keep it through several system upgrades.

Serial devices like mice and modems generally didn't stick around as long (mice break, and new computers always include a new mouse; modems die, are upgraded, are displaced by a modem provided with a new system, or are set aside in favor of broadband).