Sure you could do it. You could even put 25 pins in 9 pin housing if you made the pitch smaller.

They just don’t exist, and hopefully never will.

reaperducer 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sure you could do it. You could even put 25 pins in 9 pin housing if you made the pitch smaller.

They just don’t exist, and hopefully never will.

Maybe not as a standard, but I've seen a several companies stuff a crazy number of pins into a DE9 shell. I think one of them was my old GRiD Compass.

Beast of a machine. Heavy as hell, magnesium case, bubble memory, a screen that caused all televisions it was pointed at to lose their signal, and a sticker on the bottom saying it was illegal to use it in a whole list of countries, including Israel.

	▲	leptons 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Seems like it has 19 pins in a DE9 shell. That's a lot. VGA connectors were also in a DE9 shell, but had 15 pins. The funny thing about the GRiD DE9 connector is that it's labeled "Serial", but every DE9 serial port connector I've ever seen is 9-pin. I have to wonder what else they are cramming into that 20-pin DE9 "serial" port. http://raster-burn.net/wordpress/wp-content/gallery/grid-113...

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somat 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Heh flashback, I had an ati all in wonder, which was a video card with built in video capture. Now this involves a lot of ports so the model I had used a port breakout dongle for the video capture stuff, and some engineer had the bright idea to run all these pins through a mini-din connector. Think a ps/2 connector with about 10 pins crammed into it. Now ps/2 connectors are sort of stupid in the first place. why a round connector that is keyed to only go in one way? But this 10 pin variant was a nightmare to insert and by about the third time I made a firm resolution to never unplug it again if I could help it.

Footnote: keyed round connectors are not actually that bad, super strong, easy to seal and you can fit a large nut or bayonet clamp to them to make them extremely secure. However, this depends on having a well placed shell/key and mini-din doesn't, it is a bad connector. Not enough shell and key for solid locating so the pins tend to ride on the face while you try and orient it.

I think this was the one I had.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/all-in-wonder-9600.c86...

	▲	johncalvinyoung 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Whoa, I had that card (or one very much like it). I remember that cursed not-PS2 port especially.

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leptons 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

VGA connectors were a DE-9 shell with 15 pins in them, and were used widely for many years to connect monitors to computers. There are other connectors that crammed 19 pins into a DE-9 shell. 25 might be a bit too much, but 19 is pretty close.

	▲	dingaling 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		They're just DE shells, not DE-9

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9rx 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's the physical contradiction, then? I don't get it.

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aleph_minus_one 6 days ago | parent [-]

The physical contradiction is that the standard requires a particular pitch of the pins, and a specific distance of the pins from the shell.

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9rx 6 days ago | parent [-]

What's the point of "9", then? And how do you explain DE15 (popularized by VGA)?

	▲	khedoros1 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> What's the point of "9", then? Originally? Because that was the naming convention that Cannon designated. Later, because the shell size wasn't sufficient to determine the number of pins. > And how do you explain DE15 (popularized by VGA)? Cannon's D-series connectors started with 2 rows, at the "normal density" of 326/3000 of an inch between pins. They later expanded the range of connectors with "high density" and "double density" connectors that put more pins at greater densities into the original shell sizes. DE15 is in the "high density" range.

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jrockway 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

In a world with 3D printers, everything can potentially exist.

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Perz1val 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

So if I put USB type C into a DB shell should I call it a DB-USB-C?

	▲	SAI_Peregrinus 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, of course. You should be able to fit more than one in there, with a hub in the connector housing!

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5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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relaxing 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Man-made horrors etc.