For home juke need cable on NCR 7401 to connect parallel port to ext CDrom drive

[ncrjuke2011]

I want to make a home mp3 jukebox player with an NCR 7401 pos kiosk computer I bought on ebay; and I have seen some reports that others have done the same thing.  Problem is, the OS has been wiped before these units are sold surplus on ebay and you have to configure setup on the unit to boot from the parallel port, where the 7401 manual says you connect a parallel Microsolutions Backpack model CDrom drive (also bought one of these on ebay) to load the new OS from a CD.  Apparently the flash bios on the 7401 loads a driver for this brand/model drive on bootup when you configure to boot from the parallel port.  All of the Microsolution Backpack CDrom drives come with a cable having conventional 25 pin parallel plugs on both ends.  The NCR 7401 has an oddball small 28 pin parallel jack (female), which would need a 28 pin male plug for the pc end of cable and the 25 pin parallel plug for the CDrom drive end.  The NCR 7401 manual calls for a "parallel display conversion cable", having NCR part number 497-0411000 to make that connection to the 7401 parallel port and the drive.   I have found a supplier on the web, who wants 80 bucks for the cable, but that's twice what I paid for the whole NCR 7401 touch screen pc.  Does anybody know of a reasonable supplier for that cable.  If I could get a pinout diagram showing which pins on the 25 pin conventional plug end go to which pins on the 28 pin end; I could make my own cable.  Any advice to further this project would be much appreciated.  Thanks 

[planetjay]

I used to work for NCR. I have 3 7401s in my basement right now. Found this thread because I too am looking at making a Jukebox out of one. The cable you seek is this one I believe. It's available in various lengths too.

A better solution is to set up a Linux box as a Boot Server and load from it. You can also boot from it and have no HD.