Assorted Information

 

                    1.    RocketPort Information

The RocketPort card is an interface card which provides multiple serial ports for your computer and is manufactured by a company called COMTROL.  The nice thing about the card is not only its expansion capability but it doesn't require or tie up any of your computer's interrupts.  RocketPort cards are available in configurations of 4, 8, or 16 serial ports with a large multi-pin plug which plugs to the card with 4, 8, or 16 cables coming out from that plug.  If you are really needing LOTS of serial ports, you can add up to 4 of these cards in any one machine.

Cards are often available on eBay but are often sold without the plug assembly and/or drivers and documentation.   That's a bit like buying a car for a really good price but the car has no transmission and drive train and they aren't readily available.  The good news is, the drivers and documentation are made available for download on their website. 

I had one of the PCI Quad cards and decided to check it out and to see how the octopus cable was configured.  A search of the Internet failed to turn up any "experimenter" information on the RocketPort cards so I set about to provide a little bit on this information.  If you find yourself in the same situation, perhaps the information below will help.

Please note that I only had the Quad cable for the PCI card which had the 78-pin socket.  I don't have ANY other information on these or any other RocketPort cards.  I can't even be sure which of the many RocketPort cards use this 78-pin socket.  I hope this helps someone.

The 78-pin plug looks somewhat like a DB-25, that is shaped somewhat like a capital D, plug but with smaller pins configured in 4 rows.  Looking at the plug end with the wider part at the top, the rows are numbered like this:

1   ------------------------------------------------------------------   20

21    -----------------------------------------------------------   39

40    ------------------------------------------------------  59

60   ----------------------------------------------    78

 

July 9, 2004:1
RocketPort 78-pin plug
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
x x x x x x x x P3/3 P2/3 P2/7 P2/4 P3/7 P1/9 P0/8 P1/2 P3/1 P3/9 P2/9
21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39
x x x x x x x x P0/3 P1/7 P1/4 P1/1 P1/6 P0/1 P0/9 P2/2 P3/6 P2/1
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59
x x x x x x x x x P0/4 P1/3 P0/7 P3/4 P1/8 P0/6 P0/2 P3/2 P3/8 P2/6 P2/8
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78
x x x x x x P0/5 P1/5 P2/5 P3/5 x x x x x x x
NOTES: K5LAD
The 78-pin plug has several positions where there would be a pin but that position is blank or "pinless.".
Those blank positions are marked with an x in the chart above.
The cells above which have neither an x nor a plug/pin number are not connected to anything.
The plug seems to be marked "Foxconn" or "Foxcom"
The quad assembly has 4   9-pin plugs marked:  P0, P1, P2, and P3.  The numbers in the cells show Plug number/Pin number.
P0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 To reverse trace the 9-pin plugs you can see to which pins
35 55 30 49 68 54 51 16 36 they are attached in the78-pin plug.  I looked for some logic
P1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 in how the individual plugs relate to the master plug but
33 17 50 32 69 34 31 53 15 didn't really find it.
P2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
39 2 11 13 70 58 12 59 20
P3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
18 56 10 52 71 38 14 57 19

Updated 07/26/2007                emailton.gif (14358 bytes)  mailto:k5lad@arrl.net

 

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