Spanner LogoSerial Link Cable

This project is dead easy to do, and provides the most fun of them all. It will let you spruce up all those old games such as Lotus Turbo Challenge II and Stunt Car Racer, and let you take full advantage of newer ones such as the excellent Gravity Force II/Gravity Power. Humungous opportunity for multiplayer-induced hilarity methinks.

Or if you're more of a seriously-minded chap/chapesse, you'll be wondering why you're still here. Well, this can also be the cheapest way to network, either two Amigas or if you really have to, an Amiga and a PC. Read on.....

So you will have woked out that there are two versions, or three if you count the Amiga - PC version. Don't fret, they are all fairly similar and just as easy to connect. If you just want the Games version, click here. Click here for the networking version, or here for the Amiga-PC version.

Games Serial Cable

Simplets of the lot, this one. You need a bit of 3-core cable, preferably shielded as some games can get pretty high speeds up, and 2 female 25-pin D-type connectors. I'm not even going to bother with a connections diagram, and I don't think you need a diagram to show you how the connectors are numbered either. Look at the back, the solder side, and across the top from left to right are pins 1-13, and on the bottom from left to right are 14-25. Simple! Now, just connect these up: 

          Connector A        Connector B       Signal
          -----------        -----------       ------

               2                  3         A Send / B Receive
               3                  2         B Send / A Receive
               7                  7         Ground
Note the cunning switch around of pins 2 and 3! That's it, have fun.....

Parts Needed:

Networking Serial Cable

This one's just a little bit more complicated than the gamers cable, but it's still dead simple and a child of 2 could do it in their sleep. Well, sort of :)
You need the same equipment, apart from the fact that you need four more wires in the cable. It's probably worth getting a better quality cable too, as two Amigas can reach speeds of 115kbps easily during transfers. Then connect them up in the following fashion: 

    Connector A         Connector B         Signal
    -----------         -----------         ------

        2                   3             Send/Receive
        3                   2             Receive/Send
        4                   5             Request to Send
        5                   4             Clear to Send
        6                  20             Data Set Ready
       20                   6             Data Terminal Ready
        7                   7             Ground
You'll notice this is just a expansion on the games version, so it's perfectly OK to use this one for games playing. It just needs more crossing of wires.

Parts Needed:

Amiga-PC Serial Cable

OK, face it, you are going to have some communication with a PC sooner or later. But by using a network package such as PC2Amiga, you can make the dreaded moment later rather than sooner :). Whatever reason you have for connecting the two machines up, 99% of the time this is the cable for you. The main difference between this and the Amiga-Amiga network cable is the connector on one end is different, the PC's use a 9-pin connector. Nothing special then, just a rework of the connections. Same cable, one 25-pin connector, one 9-pin connector, let's go!: 


        Amiga        PC          Signal
        -----        --          ------

          2          2           Send/Receive
          3          3           Receive/Send
          4          8           Request to Send/Clear to Send
          5          7           Clear to Send/Request to Send
          6          4           Data set ready/Data terminal ready
         20          6           Data terminal ready/Data set ready
          7          5           Ground
Notice that this one does not cross 2 and 3 over! The PC connector already does this for you.

Parts Needed:

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