- VCF South West - June 14 - 16, Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas
- VCF West - Aug 2 - 3, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCF Midwest - Sept 7 - 8 2024, Schaumburg, IL
- VCF SoCal - Mid February 2025, Location TBD, Southern CA
- VCF East - April 2025, Infoage Museum, Wall NJ
-
Please review our updated Terms and Rules here
IBM DISPLAYWRITER: what is this cable ?
- Thread starter rssgrg
- Start date
Welcome to the forum, @rssgrg !
My immediate guess is going to be that it’s a serial cable, but I don’t know the DisplayWriter system at all. You might want to check the manuals, here:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6580_D...r_System_General_Information_Manual_May82.pdf
- Alex
My immediate guess is going to be that it’s a serial cable, but I don’t know the DisplayWriter system at all. You might want to check the manuals, here:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/6580_D...r_System_General_Information_Manual_May82.pdf
- Alex
krebizfan
Veteran Member
That should be the cable that connects to the 5218 Displaywriter serial printer. I would suggest checking which pins are connected between the 9 pin side and the 25 pin side. IIRC, the Displaywriter uses different pins than common for the PC making that cable a bad choice for use connecting a PC to a serial modem. I did a quick look up of the pinouts but it is possible that the two descriptions are counting from different pin 1s.
Thanks to both for Your reply. I just managed to get my IBM 6580 up and running. Now I will try to connect it to a PC-XT286 (with BSC card) using a null modem with 25-pin connector and BSC protocol. (these connection worked at the end of '80 using a different DWS and the same modem and PC-XT286) Coudl you help me to fnd the pin-out of the cable from conector 4 (15 pin) of the Displaywriter to the 25-pin standard EIA of the null modem ? Thanks in advance. Giorgio
krebizfan
Veteran Member
The pinout seems to be on page 12-6 of the IBM Displaywriter Communications which shows the 15-pin cable and lists the corresponding pins for the 25-pin RS-232C cable.
Swamp_Donkey
Member
That cable you have looks to be either the cable used to allow a PC to connect to a Displaywriter 5218 printer or the cable for the PC attachment kit to attach directly to the 6580 system. What is its pinout? Also do you have the accompanying software disk?
Last edited:
