jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping) (09/07/89)
Folks,
Has anyone successfully wired a microphone-to-audio-input adapter for the
SparcStation-1? The 4.0.3 Release Notes manual has the pins required for
a do-it-yourself version of this adapter...
...but where does one find the Mini-DIN plug in the first place? I can't
find specs for it in a manual (I've tried to wade through them all...).
Give me a plug and I can wire it...but I need the plug...I've scoured all
the connector catalogs I can find. I probably just missed it, eh?
Can someone give me a lead? Send mail to me and I'll summarize...
Mike Jipping Internet: jipping@cs.hope.edu
Hope College BITNET: JIPPING@HOPE
Department of Computer Science Voice: Hey!
P.S. I know Sun will sell me their own version of this thing. But (1) it
costs $40, and (2) "everything from Sun takes at least 45 days to ship"
according to the sales rep. I'd like to play with this cheaper and
faster. wjc@ho5cad.att.com (William J Carpenter) (09/22/89)
In article <1484@brazos.Rice.edu> jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping) writes: > Has anyone successfully wired a microphone-to-audio-input adapter for the > SparcStation-1? The 4.0.3 Release Notes manual has the pins required for > a do-it-yourself version of this adapter... > ...but where does one find the Mini-DIN plug in the first place? I can't What I did (after looking around in the right places for the right thing and coming up dry) was to look in a place not expected to be sophisticated enough. In other words, a regular old cater-to-the-masses computer store. Turns out that some Apple equipment (I forget which) uses these 8pin mini-DINs (note: *not* regular size 8pin DIN available at Radio Shack and everywhere else). So, I just bought some kind of printer cable or something that had a connector on both ends, cut it in half and was ready to solder up two Sparcstation audio I/O cables (no, sorry, you can't have one of mine :-). Although the Sparcstation docs tell you which signals go on which pins, they don't tell you which pins are which on the mini-DIN. Of the two cables I made, one has really bad hum (since I skipped the shielding stuff) but works in both directions; the other works only for microphone/line input, but is clear of hum (I figure a bad solder connection or something). Since I was only interested in input anyhow, I haven't bothered to screw around with them. We recorded a bunch of stuff off a CD player this way until we got bored with using up all that disk space (8k/sec) and went back to work. Here's what I surmised: ================================================================ Here is the pinout for the 8-pin mini-DIN connector on the back of a SPARCstation 1. BTW, "8-pin mini-DIN" is not the same thing as "8-pin DIN", although I believe the pinouts are the same. Cable connector Pizzabox connector v v 6 8 7 7 8 6 1 2 3 3 2 1 4 5 5 4 The "v" is the key on the top of the connector. The left picture is looking into the connector on the end of a cable, and the right picture is looking into the connector on the back of the box. This is actually the pinout for 8-pin DIN. I am sure it is right for the four wires we use on 8-pin mini-DIN, since I made a cable and it works. The others could be off since the 8-pin DIN has a different physical placement of the pins and I had to guess which corresponded to which. Here is the excerpt from p 89 in the SPARCstation release notes: Mini-DIN 8-pin end Phone jack Pin 3 Microphone Tip (center connection) Pin 6 Microphone Ring (also connect to shield) Pin 7 Speaker Ring (sleeve) Pin 8 Speaker Tip (center connections -- not stereo) The jazz about connecting pin 6 to shield is important to keep out hum. Bill Carpenter att!ho5cad!wjc or attmail!bill