** Help ** 6 Pin phone to USB cable

[theodog]

Hi All,
I have an old Pictor 216xt and would like to revive it(don't know why). However, I have lost the 6pin to 232 conector. My new laptop has only USB so,
Does anybody have a wire diagram of how to connect the 6pin phone to USB?
Can the be purchased in Aus?
Cheers

[Dennis]

I don’t think it will be that simple?

I have an RS232 to USB PCMCIA card and an RS232 to USB “dongle” and I think both have active components inside the assemblies. That is, they are not simple straight through connectors where e.g. RS232 Wire A is wired directly to USB Wire A.

It looks like you may need to obtain a cable like original Meade and then use a suitable RS232 to USB, doing it in 2 hops as it were?

Cheers

Dennis

[Luke Bellani]

Hi,
There are a couple of things to consider here.
First, I have no direct knowledge of the Pictor 216xt so I cannot help directly with the Pictor wiring but I can make a couple of suggestions.

Before you can make another cable you will need to know what the connector pin allocation is on the Pictor.
For example, which pin is Ground, Tx, Rx, CTS, RTS? These are the RS232 signals that are mostly used (I'm assuming that the Pictor interface is RS232C).

If you can find this out then making a cable will be easy but connecting it to the computer is another thing.

This cable cannot be directly connected to a USB port. USB and RS232 are totally different types of interface and any attempt will probably cause damage.

You will need either a USB to Serial Adaptor (keep clear of the Belkin ones), or a PCMCIA RS232C card.

Personally I would get the PCMCIA card.

Once you decide which way you prefer making the cable will be easy.

I won't go into exactly how to make the cable here but if you can decide which approach you intend to take I am happy to cover this with you later. The critical bit of information required is the pinout description of the Pictor connector.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Luke.

[theodog]

OK thanks
will post when I find out.
I am in no hurry as this would be a second camera.
Cheers