The ribbon cable on my TRS-80 Model 3 is in bad shape. Are there any other better made, more rugged cables I can use in it's place? Where can I buy one?
I ended up removing the connectors on the boards, installing pin headers, and using a ide cable. (It's single row pins, so just one half of the cable.)
I ended up removing the connectors on the boards, installing pin headers, and using a ide cable. (It's single row pins, so just one half of the cable.)
Good idea. Is there a special pinout or are all of the pins used? It look like some of the pins were bent back, but I can't tell if it's because it is cheap, or they are bent back because they aren't used.
That kind of cable is called "flexible flat cable" (FFC). And as I recall, those used a conductor spacing or "pitch" of 0.10 inches or 2.54mm. Unfortunately most of the new stuff out there uses a smaller, metric pitch.
They fall apart quickly because they just aren't designed to be inserted and removed more than a few times.