Also, it's 8P8C, not RJ45, and sometimes it's more important to use the term from a standard body, but usually it's more important to use the term everyone knows. When documenting, I recommend saying something like this:
J3 is an 8P8C jack (commonly RJ45) for IEEE P802.3bz 2.5GBASE-T communications, backward compatible with Gigabit and Fast Ethernet
D-sub has got to be one of the longest enduring connector standards I can think of, apart from wall outlets. They're from the 50s, originally for military use, and we're still speccing them in new space hardware today. Now they've got coax/twinax, high power, fiber, and even pneumatic "contacts" if you know where to look (and can afford it). I can't say that they'd be my first choice, personally, but it's quite remarkable to see how well they've fared over the better part of a century.
There's a lot of things like this, especially when the connector is commonly used for just one thing. One is "composite video" which at one point or another I have heard items on this list used interchangeably (though not always at the same time):
composite video
- RS-170
- monochrome video
- EIA-170
- NTSC
- black and white video
- CVBS
- B&W video
- RS-170A
- analog video
- PAL
- yellow RCA plug
- just plain "video"
These don't even all refer to the same thing, and some are definitely more correct than others, but all are used even by technical people.
Here's another one: "Amphenol connector", "Cannon connector" or "Molex connector". It's the same as saying "Ford car".
For me, if I ever say IEC mains lead I get a blank expression. C13 even more so.
"Kettle lead" (Which is notched to indicate it can take a higher temperature and most of cables aren't that, they will be the c13 type), and their face lights up and a cable will be handed to me.
Just one of those things that's wrong, but it's not worth being pedantic over it, imo.
You have been misusing the D-sub connector terminology
No I haven’t and the same is true for approximately everyone else.
Because we have not been using D-sub connector terminology at all. We have been talking about the things that come with (and without) DB9 connectors. We have been (mostly) playing —- as the witty Wittgenstein would say — a different language game.
That’s why you know what I mean. So bring me a slab.
I always just called it a serial port, because I could never remember DB9 to begin with. I really hope I remember this so I can impress some nerds in the future with how pedantic I can be. (I don't know how to write that last sentence without it sounding sarcastic, but I really meant it.)
My VGA (DE-15) and keyboard and mouse (Mini DIN #6) ports disagree. The printer port (DB-25) could not be reached for comment, as it is still set for uni-directional.
I do wonder why they decided to have have separate shell size and pin designations given there appears to be a 1:1 correlation between shell sizes and pins (i.e. the 'B' shell is always 25 pins, the 'E' shell is always 9 pins). Perhaps there was plan to have fewer pins in the same shell at some point?
One of the more confusing versions of this I came in contact with recently is the 23 pin amiga rgb port. It has no real official D-subminature name as there is no such designation for the shell of a 12+11 pin port, which I assume is due to the fact that it was for a non-IBM machine...BUT some sellers (on aliexpress) DO call it a DB-23 port...I did figure it out eventually and got a few but it did take a while after searching for "12+11 serial" and being a bit frustrated at not finding anything.
If you keep calling it DB9 everybody knows what you're talking about. They don't think you're weird and they also don't waste time talking about terminology.
The real reason is that in the 1980s this illustration ( https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/home_page_posts/1/4/2/9/8/DS... ) was not shown to people. And an illustrator, probably who hadn't seen it either, is who got it wrong. I don't blame them. The existence of an arbitrary letter invariably joined with a useful and descriptive number is the fault here. And the illustrator could NOT show the whole thing anyway because it contained diagrams of products not sold. The perfect setup.
That is all. Everything else is blah blah blah (about DB9, love all the examples of other goofy identifiers!)
People strive for accuracy and remember things. I love people-in-general and they have an impressive track record. They improved on the standards committee.
A favourite paper: “ A Microfluidic D-subminiature Connector” “ Standardized, affordable, user-friendly world-to-chip interfaces represent one of the major barriers to the adoption of microfluidics. We present a connector system for plug-and-play interfacing of microfluidic devices to multiple input and output lines.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3786702/
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32886596
We used the DD-50 connectors in the telephony world and called them "DD-50 connectors." I always wondered why they were "DD-50" and the 9 and 25 pin connectors were "DB-9" and "DB-25". Now I know... we were just using the nomenclature wrong.
IMO this is a case where being correct causes confusion rather than clarity. Everyone calls this connector DB9, so calling it DE9 is going to make people wonder if it's really a DB9 or only looks like it ...
Surprised that no one has corrected them that it's not RS232 anymore. It was eventually ratified and it's technically called EIA-232-F (at least for the most recent 1997 version).
The examples would illustrate the issue a little better if there were two pin counts with the same shell, eg DE9 and DE15 and maybe two shells with the same pin count (though I'm not aware of such an example).
Could the name "DB9" have come from 25-pin serial ports with only the minimum 9 pins populated? That would be a correct "DB9" and would also be valid electrically. I think I've even seen one of those in the wild before.
Well, I admire the nerd logic, but it seems like it would just unnecessarily cripple sales if people searching for it under the common name can't find it.
Given that DB9 is so pervasive (and I admit this is new information to me), I thought AI training data might include the error but no, ChatGPT knows DB9 is wrong:
This might not prevail in the world of tech, but in language studies, words mean what the majority of their users think they mean. Examples:
* Decimated. How many of you know this means (or once meant) reduced by 1/10?
* Literally. Often used to mean figuratively, to the degree that it can be relied on to mean nothing at all.
* Reign, as in "reign him in". Clearly now an accepted misuse, reign once defined what a monarch does to a kingdom, not what a cowboy does to a horse (i.e. rein).
* Fewer / less. Sadly interchangeable in modern writing, "fewer" was once reserved for enumerable things, while "less" referred to continuous measures. Less water, fewer liters of water.
* Double precision. In computer science, defined in IEEE 754 as a floating-point data format with a 53-bit mantissa, therefore 15.95 decimal digits (53 * log(2)/log(10)). Now the norm, the default, to the degree that people may forget what "double" refers to. Because of double's ubiquity, in the fullness of time I expect single precision will come to be known as ... wait for it ... half precision.
Lexicographers are at pains to point out that words mean what people think they mean. I think they have a point.
The correct technical designation for a D-sub connector with nine pins is DE9.
It’s early and eyes are still a little blurry, but I’m not seeing a cite?
Wikipedia fleshes it out a bit:
The D-sub series of connectors was introduced by Cannon in 1952.[3] Cannon's part-numbering system uses D as the prefix for the whole series, followed by one of A, B, C, D, or E denoting the shell size, followed by the number of pins or sockets
No links to a primary source, but seems plausible.
It's a DE9, not a DB9 (but we know what you mean)
(news.sparkfun.com)392 points by jgrahamc 23 hours ago | 251 comments
Comments
Why couldn't a DB shell house a 9 pin connector? I don't see the physical contradiction (even if nobody actually manufactures such a thing).
composite video - RS-170 - monochrome video - EIA-170 - NTSC - black and white video - CVBS - B&W video - RS-170A - analog video - PAL - yellow RCA plug - just plain "video"
These don't even all refer to the same thing, and some are definitely more correct than others, but all are used even by technical people.
Here's another one: "Amphenol connector", "Cannon connector" or "Molex connector". It's the same as saying "Ford car".
"Kettle lead" (Which is notched to indicate it can take a higher temperature and most of cables aren't that, they will be the c13 type), and their face lights up and a cable will be handed to me.
Just one of those things that's wrong, but it's not worth being pedantic over it, imo.
No I haven’t and the same is true for approximately everyone else.
Because we have not been using D-sub connector terminology at all. We have been talking about the things that come with (and without) DB9 connectors. We have been (mostly) playing —- as the witty Wittgenstein would say — a different language game.
That’s why you know what I mean. So bring me a slab.
But language is for communication, and the most correct language is that which communicates best.
A conversation burdened with “well actually” tangents about one participant’s personal passion gets pretty tiresome.
(like half the contacts pins are half are slits and you can plug any cable in)
For instance, the Amiga used 23-pin connectors to connect displays and disk drives. They had the same pin spacing as DB25 but were slightly smaller.
That is all. Everything else is blah blah blah (about DB9, love all the examples of other goofy identifiers!)
People strive for accuracy and remember things. I love people-in-general and they have an impressive track record. They improved on the standards committee.
Standards that ignore human frailties will be corrupted by humans, and that's a good thing.
See the online interactive adjuncts here: https://connectorbook.com
https://webserialconsole.com/
Without that it is barely worth the distinction.
Set input and output and check cost.
I spent years wishing (and pretending) that this wasn't the case, but you can't fight the wind.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6883b2ff-d26c-8002-bc4d-b184d7afd4...
It’s early and eyes are still a little blurry, but I’m not seeing a cite?
Wikipedia fleshes it out a bit:
The D-sub series of connectors was introduced by Cannon in 1952.[3] Cannon's part-numbering system uses D as the prefix for the whole series, followed by one of A, B, C, D, or E denoting the shell size, followed by the number of pins or sockets
No links to a primary source, but seems plausible.