Datasette Questions

[Alarm Siren]

I'm just cleaning the innards of a particularly icky Datasette C2N, and I've got a couple of questions from curiosity:

1. There appears to be a Casette PCB edge connector on the inside of the Datasette. I don't understand why you'd want to connect a Datasette to a Datasette, especially as it would not normally be accessible?
2. There's some kind of wire sticking out of the lead, an wire braid with no insulation with a screw loop on the end. I can find no mention of its purpose in the accompanying manual, nor can I find any obvious place to screw it to on the C64. I can, however, see the remnants of a label stuck to said braid wire that included the word "IMPORTANT".... so I thought I'd best find out why it was important?

[Dr Jefyll]

Alarm Siren wrote:

1. There appears to be a Casette PCB edge connector on the inside of the Datasette. I don't understand why you'd want to connect a Datasette to a Datasette, especially as it would not normally be accessible?

I'm guessing, but maybe the connector is only used for setup/testing (in the factory).

Quote:

2. There's some kind of wire sticking out of the lead, an wire braid with no insulation with a screw loop on the end.

Braid is usually a shield. Maybe the screw loop is supposed to go under one of the C64 screws which inserts into the (grounded) chassis.

A photo might be helpful.

J

[White Flame]

The Internet claims that it's a cable shield intended to be screwed down on the PET chassis, with no mention of it in the VIC-20/C64 oriented manuals.

Wikipedia has pictures of the cable & innards, but no discussion about that ground ring itself.

[CurtisP]

The PCB edge connector just duplicates all the signals coming from the cable. Perhaps it was originally intended for some sort of daisy chaining.

There are hacks online to using it for duplication.