spaceball 2003 cable wiring diagram

[rodberry]

HI all, I have an ancient Spaceball 2003 in my possession but, sadly, the serial cable has not survived the journey from 1991.

I understand that the Spaceball 2003 is no longer supported by 3Dconnexion (c'mon..., it's only 30 years old!), but I'm hoping someone might still have a wiring diagram for the cable, or something that would help me get it going again. If you have one, and are crazy enough to beep each pin on each plug with a multimeter, we really should talk.

I'm surprised my googling has not found me the elusive cable wiring diagram yet. I am guessing that it follows the pin convention for a DB9 to 8pin mini-DIN RS232 cable of the time, but with a 9th pin for power, due to the circuit drawing a bit too much juice for the serial port (fixed in later incarnations of course.

I'll probably get the modern equivalent soon, but I would love to get this gorgeous piece of early '90s design back into action and doing doing more than simply looking cool. In theory, it would not be impossible to gut it and wire the sensors and buttons to a modern MCU board without putting any new holes in the case, but I'd rather not have to do that.

Anyway, all info gratefully accepted!

spaceball 2003.jpg (15.26 KiB) Viewed 14611 times

[jwick]

Two un-required RS-232 pins were used for 9V power. There was a power pig tail run over the length of the cable using two wires that are unused.

I'll be near one in two weeks if you want me to try to find a cable for it. The wiring diagram might have also been in the manual.

With all that being said, since it doesn't even have LEDs, it won't do much once you power it up--it'll beep. You can try to find an ancient driver. There may even be an ancient driver on our web site. No guarantees that this will run on an O/S from this century.

Makes a fine doorstop / bookend.

[jwick]

This site has everything you are looking for.