What is this?

[purple_rider]

I found this cable in my basement in a pile of wires, anyone know what it is? Sorry for the image quality

[Thorimus]

Not sure what the first one is, VGA has loads of different versions with various configurations of pins, the second one seems to be 13W3. Probably an old video cable adapter, interesting find.

[purple_rider]

3 minutes ago, Thorimus said:

Not sure what the first one is, VGA has loads of different versions with various configurations of pins, the second one seems to be 13W3. Probably an old video cable adapter, interesting find.

What would 13W3 have been used for?

[Emmien]

May be VGA to RGB.

 

The first picture definitely shows DSUB-15

 

 

Or it may be some proprietary connector used for data to some device.

[Thorimus]

Just now, purple_rider said:

What would 13W3 have been used for?

Analogue video, probably. I don't think video connectors/cables were as standardised as they are today back in the 80/90:s, and there were probably quite a lot of different connectors, which meant having to use a lot of adapters.

[purple_rider]

4 minutes ago, Emmien said:

May be VGA to RGB.

 

The first picture definitely shows DSUB-15

 

 

Or it may be some proprietary connector used for data to some device.

You might be right. The larger connector has 3 coaxial connectors.

[Emmien]

This the connector on an old Wang... CRT computer screen

 

 

[purple_rider]

11 minutes ago, Thorimus said:

Analogue video, probably. I don't think video connectors/cables were as standardised as they are today back in the 80/90:s, and there were probably quite a lot of different connectors, which meant having to use a lot of adapters.

Why would the two ends have differing amounts of pins. Are some just not connected?

[Emmien]

33 minutes ago, purple_rider said:

Why would the two ends have differing amounts of pins. Are some just not connected?

Each of the coaxial connectors count as two, and there is probably be a ground in the miniature type pins.

[Unimportant]

Looks like a stupid design to me. The normal dsub on one end kind off defeats the point of having coaxial connections on the other end.

[purple_rider]

3 hours ago, Unimportant said:

Looks like a stupid design to me. The normal dsub on one end kind off defeats the point of having coaxial connections on the other end.

I read that Sun and some other companies used the larger end as their display cable with the coax carrying red, green and blue. However, the larger connector was on both ends. Not sure what the partially populated d-sub is for.