Belkin partners with AppleInsider to track down vintage cable for Mac users

AppleInsider

Belkin is giving back to the Mac community this holiday season by helping vintage computer fans track down a much-needed cable in a partnership with AppleInsider.

In October, we wrote about Belkin's much-sought F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI cable that has long since been out of production.

This cable was produced by Belkin for Apple Power Mac G4, Power Mac G4 Cube, and Power Mac G5 computers to connect to various monitors. This includes Apple's Cinema Display and Studio Display.

There's such a desire for this cable, it spawned a Change.org petition asking for Belkin to start manufacturing more of them. Resellers have started snatching them up and gouging people for upwards of $200 online.

"As a passionate member of the worldwide vintage Apple Mac community," wrote petitioner Grant Woodward. "I am deeply concerned about the discontinuation of the Belkin F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI cable."

But this cable won't be coming back any time soon. It's niche and the connectors are too far out of date to warrant a new production run.

Instead, Belkin wants to make it easier for users to get one, without breaking the bank.

How to get or redistribute Belkin's F2E9142-WHT ADC to DVI cable

Running through the end of December, Belkin has partnered with AppleInsider to track down as many of these cables as possible. And, if you have one, Belkin will reward you for it.

Belkin's 40th Anniversary Treasure Hunt program will allow people who have one of these cables and no longer need it, to trade it in for a brand new Belkin product.

Belkin will then take these cables and connect them with vintage Mac owners who do need them. Everyone wins and Belkin can spread some holiday cheer.

Head over to Belkin's 40th Anniversary Treasure Hunt microsite where you can coordinate getting your cable to Belkin in exchange for some new gear. If you have been looking for one of them, you can reach out at [email protected].

The program is only running until December 31, 2023. Act fast if you have a cable or if you're trying to track one down.

Read on AppleInsider

hammeroftruth

Has anyone reached out to them to see what they will trade for it? They won’t rightly tell you until you contact them and then they will give you a list of items they will trade for. 

What will they charge the people who need this cable? 

rbspielman

I've got some of those cables and some pristine Cubes and matching monitors if there is interest.

rob53

I ordered an Apple FireWire 400 iPhone charger and 30-pin charger from Amazon for a very old iPod or iPhone (it’s sitting on a display shelf with other early generation devices. Of course it came from China where these cables were made. This doesn’t mean you can find the Belkin adaptor in China but it’s worth a try. 

The charger appears to be authenticate. 

mpantone

Lol, I dumped about fifty of these into the e-waste bin at my city's recycling center a year ago.

But hey, if they want to offer me $20K for my old Toyota, I'm all ears...

  

hammeroftruth

rob53 said:

I ordered an Apple FireWire 400 iPhone charger and 30-pin charger from Amazon for a very old iPod or iPhone (it’s sitting on a display shelf with other early generation devices. Of course it came from China where these cables were made. This doesn’t mean you can find the Belkin adaptor in China but it’s worth a try. 

The charger appears to be authenticate. 

I think the charger was for an iPod. I don’t remember the iPhone coming with FireWire anything. I still have a couple FireWire bricks and 30 pin cables and those came with iPods before Apple decided to change directions and go USB. 

mpantone

hammeroftruth said:

rob53 said:

I ordered an Apple FireWire 400 iPhone charger and 30-pin charger from Amazon for a very old iPod or iPhone (it’s sitting on a display shelf with other early generation devices. Of course it came from China where these cables were made. This doesn’t mean you can find the Belkin adaptor in China but it’s worth a try. 

The charger appears to be authenticate. 

I think the charger was for an iPod. I don’t remember the iPhone coming with FireWire anything. I still have a couple FireWire bricks and 30 pin cables and those came with iPods before Apple decided to change directions and go USB. 

You are correct, Apple had already transitioned to the 30-pin dock connector on handheld devices by the iPhone's launch in 2007. And they basically deprecated the Firewire interface after USB 2 arrived on the scene.

Plus a lot of the iPods came with USB connectivity since Firewire was never a well adopted interface for Windows PCs.

There were charger bricks with Firewire ports for the early iPods.

chasm

hammeroftruth said:

Has anyone reached out to them to see what they will trade for it? They won’t rightly tell you until you contact them and then they will give you a list of items they will trade for. 

What will they charge the people who need this cable? 

They’re not charging the people who need the cable anything — AppleInsider and Belkin are VOLUNTEERING to match up those who can donate a cable with those who need one.

Sorry you didn’t understand that.

davidw

hammeroftruth said:

rob53 said:

I ordered an Apple FireWire 400 iPhone charger and 30-pin charger from Amazon for a very old iPod or iPhone (it’s sitting on a display shelf with other early generation devices. Of course it came from China where these cables were made. This doesn’t mean you can find the Belkin adaptor in China but it’s worth a try. 

The charger appears to be authenticate. 

I think the charger was for an iPod. I don’t remember the iPhone coming with FireWire anything. I still have a couple FireWire bricks and 30 pin cables and those came with iPods before Apple decided to change directions and go USB. 

Not only that, the first and second generation iPods (the very very old ones) did not use the 30 pin connector. They used a Firewire port for the transfer of data and for charging. One needed to (and still do) use a Mac with iTunes and a Firewire port, to transfer songs into it. It wasn't until the 3rd generation iPod, that Apple began using the 30 pin dock connector and could also use USB for data transfer, (using the proper adapter/cable). This mainly to accommodate Windows users at the time (2003). But they still require Firewire for charging. It wasn't until the 4th generation iPod, the first one with the "clickwheel", that one could transfer data and also charge with USB, using the 30 pin/USB cable. But iPod users still could and preferred to, use the Firewire brick (with a 30 pin/Firewire cable) for charging, as it charged the iPod faster. Plus at the time, one could still use Firewire for data transfer, though there was very little speed advantage over USB2.

mikethemartian

You can’t just buy the parts from Digikey?

EncomCTO

Rbspielman I'd be interested.