One of the oldest computer cables in existence, historical scholars believe
this design was first developed by Aristotle as a means to convey Alexander's
field reports without the time-consuming process of papyrus scribing.
 
1001-00C
IBM Parallel Printer Cable Custom build at $40.00 + $1.00 per foot.
Some custom products may not be REACH compliant.
DataPro's 1001-series is a parallel printer cable terminated with a
25-pin D-Sub and a 36-pin Centronics (Champ), for use with IEEE-1284-compliant
printers. It features male connectors on both ends, design for plugging a
parallel printer directly into a computer's 25-pin parallel port.
By most accounts, IEEE-1284 cables found their heyday in the late years of
the Empire, but much of their prowess and popularity was lost after
the sack of Rome. It is generally believed that the barbarian tribes from
the Germanic lands found the durable PVC jackets, rugged molded hoods, and
heavy solder-constructed connectors to be very fine raw materials in the
manufacture of whips and snares, and therefore these cables' utility as
data transferring vehicles was abandoned.
In the dense populations of Italy, signal interference was common; but DataPro's
high-quality shielding would protect data with cables up to 50' long. Numerous
other factors may contribute to the usable length of a cable assembly, so historians
are unable to confirm a solid 'lengthus maximus' for these particular cables.
In later centuries, as the writings of Aristotle were uncovered and translated,
other scholars attempted to recreate the nostalgia of parallel printing but
with improved speed and efficiency through the use of bi-directional pooling
and faster transfers. These newer assemblies, known as BiTronics, were also
made popular by DataPro and can still be purchased
today for use in classrooms, collections, and historical reenactments.