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https://www.bigmessowires.com/2016/06/04/db-19-resurrecting-an-obsolete-connector/
This is a happy story about the power of global communication and manufacturing resources in today's world. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, then you've certainly heard me whine and moan about how impossible it is to find the obscure DB-19 disk connector used on vintage Macintosh and Apple II computers (and some NeXT and Atari computers too). Nobody has made these connectors for decades.
I've got a disk emulator product called Floppy Emu that attaches to an Apple DB-19 port, so I need a steady supply of these connectors to build my hardware, and that's a problem. Over the past couple of years, I've scrounged what seems like every warehouse and basement on the planet, and bought up nearly the entire world's remaining supply of new-old-stock DB-19 connectors. My last few product batches included DB-19s from some very obscure international sources. It was clear I'd reached the end of the road.
This wasn't a surprise. The DB-19 shortage first became obvious to me about a year and a half ago, when a manufacturing error forced me to replace all the DB-19 connectors in a batch of boards, and replacements couldn't be readily found. Since then I've written a dozen times about the impending DB-19 doomsday. I also made severalattempts to design a DB-19 substitute using a small PCB and suitably-arranged header pins, but while they more-or-less worked, I wasn't satisfied with the result.
[...] But just as I was getting discouraged, good luck arrived in the form of several other people who were also interested in DB-19 connectors! The NeXT and Atari communities were also suffering from a DB-19 shortage, as well as others in the vintage Apple community, and at least one electronics parts supplier too. After more than a year of struggling to make manufacturing work economically, I was able to arrange a "group buy" in less than a week. Now let's do this thing!
[...] Two months passed, and a round of prototyping. Progress was slow but steady, and I received updates from the manufacturer every few days. I kept waiting, eagerly anticipating this DB-19 bounty. At the end of May the product finally shipped, only to disappear into a US Customs black hole somewhere for a couple of days. Then at long last, after what felt like an infinite wait, I came home to find 10000 of these beauties stacked on my doorstep[!]
(Score: 1) by jman on Thursday October 24 2019, @11:23AM
D-Subminiature ports were first used by Canon in the early 50's. The "B" series had 25 pins, and early PC's used them for both serial and parallel communication (i.e., for printing, and connecting your modem).
We call the "standard" serial port a DB9, but it was actually a DE9, just as a DB15 (the blue "VGA" port) was actually a DE15.
Back in the day, when going on commercial IT service calls, the light blue "Cisco" console cable was just a DB9 with some custom mapping to an 8-port Ethernet jack. If you'd accidentally left your Cisco cable plugged into a router or switch at the previous site, you could make a new one from other parts lying in the bottom of your bag. It wouldn't be pretty, but at least you'd get that console prompt and could go back to work.
But the real story here is, just as these folks have had to adapt to finding (or creating) new supply chains for needed parts, by the time another generation or two has gone by, they won't need to make a group buy, or worry about scrounging for parts in a discount bin to keep a supply of these connectors.
They'll just - in a proper use of the word irony - print a new one.