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I have an old SCSI Zip Drive that I want to use with my old Macintosh Plus as a replacement for a HDD. The Zip Drive has two female DB-25 SCSI ports on it, one for connecting to the computer, and the other for connecting to another SCSI device. The Mac Plus has one female DB-25 SCSI port. The problem is, I don't have a DB-25 SCSI cable for this purpose. But, I do have a Parallel Cable, with two male ends, that would fit into the SCSI port on the computer, and the correct SCSI port on the Zip Drive, so would I be able to use it as an alternative, since it's just a cable, or is it wired differently?

qrani
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  • RS232 is wired quite differently than parallel and the two are not interchangeable. The device will be much slower than a hard drive. – John Feb 03 '20 at 22:42
  • Yes, I know it will be slower than a HDD. It's only a temporary solution, I will be buying a solid state device for it soon, so I figured that if I need temporary fixed storage, I might as well use something I have instead of buying an entirely new fixed disk. – qrani Feb 03 '20 at 22:50
  • @John As far as I know, SCSI is not RS232, and printer parallel port is also not RS232 – u1686_grawity Feb 03 '20 at 23:19
  • Yes, I was in error when I posted. Sorry about that – John Feb 04 '20 at 02:38
  • I wouldn't trust a Zip [or Jaz] drive as far as I could spit it. They were terrible in the 90s & I doubt they've improved with age. You can still get SCSI drives, just found a load on Amazon starting at £14 & cables from £6. – Tetsujin Feb 04 '20 at 07:57
  • As I said, it's only a TEMPORARY fixed disk drive solution. I'm already buying a much more consistent, faster, and usable solid state solution for a fixed disk drive. I just wanted to know if I could use a parallel cable with a SCSI Zip Drive while I wait. – qrani Feb 04 '20 at 16:15

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No, and you will be dissatisfied with the lack of speed if it does happen to work.

Shielding and pinouts on those ZIP drive cables were not what you get with random RS-232 printer cables.

K7AAY
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