TheVille

I was going through my parts boxes and sorting stuff when I came across an old adapter dongle I have, and realized I don't have a clue what it is. Usually I'm pretty good at sorting these out, but I have had no luck at all figuring out this connector.

One end is a DA-15, a standard old-style D-sub connector with 2 rows. That's easy enough.

The other end is strange, to say the least. Square shaped but with one corner rounded off, 12 pins total, in 2 rows of 4, and 4 more in a hodgepodge above. It has a little latch to secure it in to a port, with a press-down release mechanism on the outside. Photo attached.

Does anybody have any idea what this is? I always like to know what I have lying around.



If you're interested, here's the rest of the dongle

is it for a projector?

Those look like fingers.

ADevilishPotato wrote:is it for a projector?

Hmm, while I have a projector, it doesn't have anything like this. I believe it might pre-date my acquisition of that, but as I don't know what it is, I can't swear to it!

.

rethought my answer. not that.


..some kind of midi adapter?

..adapter for a breakout box for video production?

bluntspoon wrote:..some kind of midi adapter?

That's what I would guess, either that or something for some specific kind of game controller. The one end looks very much like it's a gameport adapter from before USB came out, at least the number of pins looks right for it. And what plugged into that was either game controllers or midi devices.

And it seems much more likely to be the midi adapter, because generally game controllers didn't need some kind of in-between cable.

It kinda reminds me of a printer cable I had a long, long time ago, would not surprise me if that's what it is.

Midi cables haven't changed as far as I know. They are usually round.

In my browsing of images of connectors, the closest thing I could find is that there are some similar cables for connecting diagnostic machines for automobile electronics - any chance you were dabbling in that at some point a while back?

(I still think it's from some oddball printer but who knows!)

Why not plug it into a DA-15 on your computer and trace the continuity? Then you'll be able to rig up an adapter to go from this back to DA-15.

After some intrigue but no luck with a couple suggestions above...

PaSTE wrote:Why not plug it into a DA-15 on your computer and trace the continuity? Then you'll be able to rig up an adapter to go from this back to DA-15.

Sadly, none of my five current computers carry a legacy DA-15 port. Which made me wonder if I had anything around this would still plug in to...

Digging through my cabinet o' hardware, I have a single item that carries such a port. It's an old Sound Blaster Live! card made in 2000, I believe it's the Dell OEM model, which came with the computer I went off to college with.

I think this is the one! There's a bizarre little symbol on the DA-15 end of the plug (might be an old Sound Blaster proprietary logo?) that looks like an exclamation mark above a diamond. The same symbol is etched on the back plate of the card, just below the DA-15 slot, followed by a slash and then musical notes. I'm guessing this is what was suggested above, an indication that it's the output for an external midi box or something. I think I still have the documentation from that computer around here... I wonder if this is in it.

Off to find out!

So, the card is a Sound Blaster Live! Value Dell OEM CT4780, and while I can't find any specific paperwork on "what's in the box" so to speak, an online manual indicates that the port in question was for both Game Port and MIDI input purposes. It also mentions that a special adapter can be bought from Creative to allow both at once. Nothing mentions a dongle, but I would guess that this is either a connector for that adapter, or is some kind of proprietary hook-up for some favored kind of keyboard or other MIDI device.

Anything to do with the particular computer I suspect this came with is pretty out there as far as possibilities - it was from the heyday of bad experimentation. It was equipped with RD-RAM memory, a Slot 1 SECC Pentium 2, and even Windows ME for an operating system. A proprietary 12 pin MIDI adapter seems right up that alley!

So now, you can safely throw it away

BlueInGreen wrote:So now, you can safely throw it away

Never!

there are kids reading these pages, ali.....put your D (*) away.






(* adapter)