[Coco] CoCo Y Cable source?

[Joel Ewy]

Derek wrote:
> I saw this auction on e-bay for a Y cable on the coco cartridge port : http://cgi.ebay.com/Tandy-TRS-80-CoCo-Y-Cable_W0QQitemZ300164897068QQihZ020QQcategoryZ74947QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
>
> I would bid but the seller only takes Paypal who I do not use. I looked on Cloud ('s web site as well but did not see one for sale. Is there another source for these Y cable adapters? I want to run my RS-232 and Disk Controller at the same time (also I do not have room for a MPI.
>
>   
They're not hard to build if you can get ahold of some 40-conductor
cable (like an old IDE cable) and appropriate connectors.  I have a
crimping tool for IDC (insulation displacement connectors) but you can
use a pair of pliers to crimp the connectors on the cable, if you're
careful.  Some small metal plates can help with distributing the
pressure evenly over the entire connector as you crimp.  You can also
re-use the connectors if you can pry them apart without breaking them. 
If you have a supply of old cables with connectors, you can work at
getting them off using small implements such as pocket knife blades and
very thin, small screwdriver blades.  You may break a few, but all you
need is three good ones.  You can always buy new ones, too, if you have
a local electronics supply store or don't mind paying the shipping costs.

What's really hard (maybe near impossible?) to find is a male 40-pin
edge connector to plug into the cartridge slot on the CoCo.  What I did
for my CoCo 3 repack was to un-solder the cartridge connector and solder
a 40-pin header in its place.  I used a wire-wrap header with long pins
and bent one row of pins farther away from the others so that it would
fit in the differently spaced  holes intended for the removed edge
connector.  Then I put a common 40-pin header socket  (like the kind on
an IDE cable) on the end of my Y-cable ribbon to attach to the CoCo.  I
crimped a couple 40-pin (female) edge connectors on the other end of the
cable.  I probably got those at Rad-Shak.  The plastic housing on those
needed to be trimmed away a little with an X-acto knife because of the
grounding ears on the disk controller and RS-232 Pak.  Then I took the
ground clips I had removed from the CoCo's cartridge connector, soldered
a heavy gauge wire to both of them, and crimped a screw lug on the other
end, so it could be grounded to the case.  Then I slipped that on the
grounding ears on both of the controllers beside the new edge connectors. 

I used a Disto Super Controller II with 4-in-one, plus the Rad-Shak
RS-232 Pack (with ROM removed) on that Y cable with a 512K CoCo 3 6309
mounted in a mini-tower case for many years, until the old 40M MFM drive
I had hooked up to it through an Adaptec 4000A SCSI controller finally quit.

JCE
> Thank You
>
> Derek
>
>
>
>
> ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization **
>
>
>  
>
>
>  __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
> http://mail.yahoo.com 
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>