Vintage Mac Community Begs Manufacturers for New Supply of Rare Dongle as Resellers Charge $250 (404media.co) 20
Members of the vintage Mac community are in desperate need of a new supply of a specific, discontinued dongle that has become increasingly rare and extremely expensive on the secondary market. From a report: "Bring Back the Belkin F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI Cable for Vintage Apple Macs!," a change.org petition created this week by vintage Mac enthusiast Grant Woodward reads. "I am deeply concerned about the discontinuation of the Belkin F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI cable. This essential piece of technology has become increasingly rare and difficult to find since it went out of production," the petition reads. "For those unfamiliar with its significance, this cable allows vintage Apple Macintosh computers to connect with more recent monitors, breathing new life into these iconic machines. It is an invaluable tool for restoring, collecting, and preserving these pieces of computing history." As Woodward notes, the adapter in question allows an older generation of Power Mac G3 and G4 from the early 2000s to connect to newer monitors.
wow (Score:1, Troll)
it's almost like a bunch of privileged nerds are so lazy and cheap that they want a manufacturer to burn money in order to give their stupid hobby a lifeline
it's literally just two connectors with some wires in between. if there's electronics in it, rip one open, document it, put the schematic online. then make your own.
or stop using old obscure hardware
or pay for it like everyone else with a rare expensive hobby
why is this newsworthy?
Re: (Score:2)
From the article, it's just a passive connector so this is really just an adapter, I wouldn't even call it a dongle. Learn how to strip some wires and make your own if you really want to keep using your awful early-2000s Apple technology.
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So a 3D printer and some epoxy should get you a fragile but usable part.
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From the sound of things it seemed like the dongle had custom chips or some bullshit inside. All they need is a connector cloned? I can probably find some company on Aliexpress to do it.
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is obtaining the male ADC connector itself. If you could buy one of those, you could wire it to a DVI cable.
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Isn't the ADC connector just a DVI connector wired differently to include things like power to the monitor, etc..?
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I am begging the auto manufacturing community to start making the 1967 Shelby Cobra again. I am in desperate need of this car, but the resellers charge ridiculous amounts of money for this increasingly rare and difficult to find vehicle.
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Parts availability for old stuff is an issue (Score:2)
The same thing happens with old car parts. It's even more frustrating in that situation, because old cars still work just fine for their original purpose (whereas old computers progressively become less and less capable of dealing with modern software and web design standards) and it's significantly more costly to buy a new car versus buying a new computer.
I think the major difference though, is that yeah, most people tinkering with old computers are doing so as a hobby. Someone who needs a hard-to-get pa
What about community solutions? (Score:3)
I'm part of a much smaller retrocomputing community focused on an older line of home PCs (The Tandy/RS Color Computer series).
We have a few different options for connecting these old systems to modern monitors, all designed and sold by community members. They are all under $100 afaik.
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Re:What about community solutions? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup, same with the Atari 8-bit community. There are several options to get DVI out from the old Ataris.
For one solution, someone designed and ordered small custom circuit boards that are the same dimensions as the old 40-pin chips. The board is populated with a FPGA and other chips and plugs into the socket for the GTIA graphics chip. The FPGA re-implements the chip it replaces and the board includes a header for wires to a DVI connector.
Of course, the community ran into problems when supply chain issues resulted in small projects like this having trouble getting them built.
But, yeah, the community may need to step up and build new parts. With 3-D printing, obsolete connectors aren't a problem; people print Atari cartridge cases and SIO connectors. The biggest problem is having someone in the community with the time and knowledge to make it happen, which depends in large part on how large the community is.
News just in... (Score:2)
Obsolete stuff is hard to maintain
If you think this is hard, try maintaining old drum memory
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Interesting... (Score:1)
They've got it backwards! (Score:3, Funny)
Like every proprietary Apple technology, this connector is *better* than whatever drek comes on standard PCs.
These users shouldn't be settling for kludges that adapt to inferior commodity PC connections. Instead, they need Apple to start making the superior ADC displays again, so that the users' retinas can experience the image quality they deserve!
I’m sure that the major manufacturers (Score:3)
This Made My Day (Score:1)
Apple users complaining about their own stupidity. Carry on.
ADC to VGA (Score:1)