[Elecraft] K3S RS232 "Y" Connector causing port conflict

[David Woolley]

Actually, the large mainframe would have been a DTE as well.  It is the 
modem that is the DCE.  The specification is really one for connecting 
things to modems.

Initially PCs used 25 pin connectors and they were fairly rare in using 
them with the correct gender, male (as defined by the pins) for DTE and 
female for DCE.  Even after the move to 9 pins, they continued to use 
this convention.  Therefore, if you have a device that has a male 
connector, you can be pretty sure it is configured as a DTE.  A female 
connector, unfortunately, is not a guarantee of the converse, and the 
K2, at least, appears to be non-compliant.  It looks like the K3 has the 
same non-compliance.

-- 
David Woolley
Owner K2 06123


On 14/12/15 23:08, Don Wilhelm wrote:

> AFAIK the IBM PC was the first to use the DE-9 connector for the serial
> port connector, and they initially envisioned the PC being used as a
> terminal device connected to a large mainframe - so the mix-up began
> there - thus the PC is a DTE device, and when things are run from a PC,
> the signals are "backwards".