TL;DR: Does anyone know where I can get 8-pin SDL cables or a crimping tool for a sensible price?

A couple of weeks back I was watching a Cathode Ray Dude video, where Gravis was talking about EPOS units (cash registers, or "tills" in the UK). He was talking about connectors for cash drawers, and at around the 48 minute mark he pointed out an 8-pin socket that "looks like an RJ45 at first glance, but it's actually a weird thing called SDL."

I sat up when I saw this.

I'd seen that connector before, on the side of a #Psion #MC400, for its "fast serial" port. Up until this point I had no idea what the connector was.

I went to eBay and took a punt on a shielded 8-pin plug. It arrived earlier this week. Other than that fact that it's un-crimped and therefore the pins are sticking out, it's a perfect fit.

So... Can anyone help? I either need a few 8-pin SDL cables that are either unterminated at one end or that I can butcher, or a crimping tool. Through my initial research, prices for these are ridiculous.

#RetroComputing #AskFedi

Updated my #Psion #MC400 adjunct/sidecar Pi Zero with a super-cute #pimoroni e-ink display. I've hacked up some shell scripts and bitmaps to display statuses of various Psion-connectedness things - icons/fonts all copied from the Psion itself for retro goodness 😍 😎

https://zedstarr.com/2024/08/14/latest-raspberry-pi-psion-mc400-sidecar-update/

#Psion fans! Which machine(s) do you own?

Please reply to this post with more details:
- Exactly which machine(s)?
- Do you use it/them regularly?
- What do you use it/them for?
- Anything else you'd like to add.

#retrocomputing #Psion3 #Psion3a #Psion5 #Psion5mx #MC400 #Organiser #permacomputing

For now I'm only focusing on making something that generates FEFS24 images (24-bit pointers). That covers 99.99% of #Psion Flash and ROM SSDs.

I've only ever seen a handful of very early (1989) Type I Flash SSDs using FEFS32, and they were made by Psion themselves for the #MC200 and #MC400.

Once I've nailed FEFS24, FEFS32 will be much easier.

RAM SSDs use #FAT12, so that's a whole different ballgame. So far I've just used mtools to generate working FAT12 volumes.

#retrocomputing #Psion3