DIY $6 SERIAL cord FOR vintage APPLE QUICKTAKE CAMERAS

October 12, 2022 0 By bqk

knowing he was a person who liked electronics and taking things apart, one of [Erik]’s friends sent him a vintage Apple QuickTake 100/150 digital cam as a bit of a joke. [Erik] took pleasure in the gift, but considering that his friend hadn’t sent the needed serial cord he really couldn’t do that much with it. He searched online only to discover the cord is very tough to find these days, and thus very expensive. So, being the helpful person he is, he built his own.

Starting with an Apple MiniDin8 male cable, he cut off one end and attached the wiring to a RJ45 connector. That got plugged into a modular adapter with a DB9 female plug end and wired up. The procedure required no soldering, and cost less than $6. Awesome.

Unfortunately the lack of serial cord isn’t the only problem he faced. QuickTake isn’t compatible with newer Apple computers that use Intel. You have to either have a much older Mac, or use a Windows XP emulator. If that wasn’t bad enough, the cameras only want to save photos in QuickTake file format. Luckily, [Erik] papers how he get rid of all these issues in his post.

[Thanks Erik]