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#1 2008-01-25 5:10 pm
- sonnymoon42
- Member
- Registered: 2006-02-28
- Posts: 25
6-pin mini DIN
Did any Apple/Mac product ever use a 6-pin mini DIN cable? I picked one up at Goodwill thinking I might have a use for it (it's got the opposing arrows embossed in the plastic on the flat side of each plug end, like it might be for Appletalk/Localtalk or maybe PhoneNet).
Any ideas?
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#2 2008-01-25 6:12 pm
- D'Eyncourt
- OMGDICTATOR
- Registered: 2001-12-27
- Posts: 8204
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Re: 6-pin mini DIN
Technically it's a DIN-8 cable (not all wires were used in some cases so yours might only have 6 pins). The last of the Macs that used such were the earliest of the PowerMac G4s, which means that you might be able to use it on Macs produced before 2000 (assuming that the software on that Mac will still recognize it).
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#3 2008-01-25 7:22 pm
- dvpierce
- Negusa Negest
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Re: 6-pin mini DIN
Does it have the square dealie in the middle? It might be an honest-to-goodness Appletalk cable... useless, but awesomely old school.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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#4 2008-01-26 10:24 am
- sonnymoon42
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- Registered: 2006-02-28
- Posts: 25
Re: 6-pin mini DIN
Thanks for your replies.
Yes, it has a rectangular (vertically oriented) black plastic doohicky at the top (12 o'clock position), between the 2 upper pins. It doesn't fit the standard 8-pin DIN printer/modem ports of the classic Macs (that plastic rectangle gets in the way).
The only thing I've come up with online is this particular pin configuration is used with a PC mouse port. But I swear this thing is somehow Apple-related.
Oh well, it was only $2.
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#5 2008-01-26 12:41 pm
- dvpierce
- Negusa Negest
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Re: 6-pin mini DIN
sonnymoon42 wrote:
Thanks for your replies.
Yes, it has a rectangular (vertically oriented) black plastic doohicky at the top (12 o'clock position), between the 2 upper pins. It doesn't fit the standard 8-pin DIN printer/modem ports of the classic Macs (that plastic rectangle gets in the way).
The only thing I've come up with online is this particular pin configuration is used with a PC mouse port. But I swear this thing is somehow Apple-related.
Oh well, it was only $2.
dvpierce wrote:
It might be an honest-to-goodness Appletalk cable... useless, but awesomely old school.
It is.
I called it. 
Apple sold appletalk trancievers that let you daisy chain macs together, and those were the cables they used. Pretty much anybody with a brain used PhonNet, because it was cheaper and cables were standard and readily available.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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#6 2008-01-26 3:25 pm
- sonnymoon42
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- Registered: 2006-02-28
- Posts: 25
Re: 6-pin mini DIN
Ah! So to get this to work to connect, say, 2 Mac SEs, I would need 2 Appletalk adapters which would each connect to the Macs via the modem or printer ports, and this thing would connect the adapters to each other?
Like you say, kinda like PhoneNet, without the convenience of a phone cable.
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#7 2008-01-26 7:50 pm
- dvpierce
- Negusa Negest
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- From: Minneapolis, MN
- Registered: 1999-08-30
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Re: 6-pin mini DIN
sonnymoon42 wrote:
Ah! So to get this to work to connect, say, 2 Mac SEs, I would need 2 Appletalk adapters which would each connect to the Macs via the modem or printer ports, and this thing would connect the adapters to each other?
Like you say, kinda like PhoneNet, without the convenience of a phone cable.
Yup - and if you have only two machines to connect, it's just as easy to just connect their printer ports with a standard serial cable.
"Now commences the process of cutting off the head, which generally takes from an hour to an hour and a half by an expert workman with a sharp blade." -Reuben Delano, Wanderings and Adventures
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