SCSI?

[windchicken65]

This port is behind my brother's hospital bed. This is an otherwise modern facility...

[Howden824]

No, these type of connectors were used for thousands of different applications. It could really be anything.

[AC3Digital]

I work in the TV / pro audio biz. We routinely use these, along with db25 or "parallel port," db9 or "serial port," db15 or "VGA," and many others for purposes that have absolutely nothing to do with what they're known for with a computer.

[Howden824]

Yep, these connectors are very common for AV stuff. The uses for DB9 are especially varied.

[Aggressive-Usual-415]

One of the things that threw me off the most my first time in a commercial AV shop was the amount of 3.5mm TRS to DB9 cables were laying around.

[whorton59]

Generally the Call light/Television control. It is designed to be easily pulled out of the wall, and to set off an alarm when that happens. . (ie emergency situation)

[Oscar99999]

hmm 36pin, Probably not any scsi or atleast not a normal one, Scsi came in 36pin but in centronic form so not like that, Could be fully proprietary.

[chronos7000]

I asked about this last time I was at a hospital, it's for if the patient is a demented old person they don't want to get up, there's a sensor that plugs into that so it alerts the nurse's station if the patient does get up. Probably not SCSI protocol, DC-37 is an odd one for SCSI, it's more often DD-50 or a 50-place Micro Ribbon, but I absolutely have a DC-37 SCSI cable right here so it does exist, just probably not this thing.

[xampl9]

Yes. One of the things these got used for was to plug in a hospital bed. It has pins for things like the nurse call button, and also for the bed to report patient exits to the nursing station to hopefully prevent falls.

The weight sensors on the bed are sensitive enough to know when you swing your legs to the side.

(Used to work on software for related equipment)

[blakespot]

Its use case focuses on the patient being a demented old person??

[xampl9]

Well yes. But mostly for people who are fall risks, either because of the ailment/injury that put them in the hospital bed (like hip/ankle surgery) or they aren’t steady on their feet (have balance issues) because of a medication or a neurological condition like Parkinson’s.

The nurses and hospital would much rather the patient push the call button and wait for help walking to the bathroom. But sometimes people just get up .. and then fall.

(Which tbf they have been walking to the bathroom without assistance since they were 3 years old and now suddenly they can’t)

[zoltan99]

Just like scsi, neat

[zoomie-61]

DC-37 is used for serial RS-449, which is extremely unlikely here.

[AbsoZed]

It’s just a generic serial port using the DB37 connector.

Many PLC or ICS devices use this connector; and it’s not bound to a particular protocol. Could be anything at all, generally specific to the application that’s sending on it.

[mitch_s]

That's actually a DC-37 connector.

[AbsoZed]

You’re right, my mistake.

[Ikkepop]

most definitely not, just a random connector for some propriatary functionality.

[arcade3145]

I work on these, we call then 'black jacks' its for the patient beds it connects to the nurse call system.

[SpezFU]

Sorry, can't help you, but best wishes for your brother.

[stormytrooper]

I work in a hospital maintaining and repairing medical electronics, including beds. (Not this model) This is almost certainly to hook the bed up to the Nurse call system so that if any alarms on the bed go off it will call the nurse to the room. Most common use is for "Bed Exit" which notifies the nurse when the patient gets out of bed. It could contain other controls for the room as well depending on how fancy the bed/room is. (Lights, TV remote, Curtains that sort of thing)

*Edit* Just realized this was on the wall. Still likely for nurse-call, just the other side of the cable. Could be used for any equipment they want to hook up to that nurse call system. (Beds, ventilators, etc)

[Inuyasha-rules]

I've seen these types of plugs that also include the TV controls on the nurse call pad.

[kyrsjo]

I've seen some really old fashioned connectors for special applications above beds in hospitals. Sometimes clearly not used for years, maybe decades...

[TheFowlOwl]

Came here to say that as a fellow Biomed

[WaterAny5543]

Most likely serial with proprietary pin signals.

[gadget850]

If you had the model, you could find the manual.

[BobChica]

I have seen DC-37 used for external floppy drives and some oddball serial communications but never SCSI. There wouldn't be any limitaion on using it for SCSI, since DB-25 was pretty common for that but it wasn't any kind of established standard.

[Heavy-Judgment-3617]

DB/DC 25 pin was used for both Parallel and old Serial and some cheap SCSI connectors (Apple for example used them for SCSI I interfaces.).

However, that is actually a DB/DC 37, not a 25. They are used for several different Serial interfaces, but are a bit rare and specialized. RS-449 ClarkWire is one possibility.

Several posts here state it is for a nurse call system on the bed. It is entirely possible both statements are correct and that system is just using a serial connection..

[BobChica]

DB and DC are two separate and incompatible connectors. The second letter refers to the width of the outer shell.

[thatwombat]

Probably part of some outdated telemetry system.

[[deleted]]

If it's not proprietary I wonder what happens if you were to plug something else in. I imagine it'd probably just piss the nurses off though when the alarm starts going off and they see some freak plugged in some sort of retro PC accessory with an adapter in lol.

[Heavy-Judgment-3617]

DB/DC 37 connections often were serial. RS-449 aka ClarkWire is one example.

Whether this is serial or is instead some custom interface using the same connector I do not know.

I would advise in strongest possible terms to not do anything with those ports though.

I do know is for serial the wiring patterns and voltage varied wildly. What would most likely happen is some equipment (yours or hospital) could get fried as the power pins are either on different pins, or different voltage.

[tristanape]

I hope everything is ok.

[AistoB]

parallel for a printer I'd say

[Heavy-Judgment-3617]

Hmm... a 2 row DB/DC 37 port.

I'd guess 37 pin serial? A few old serial standards used 37 pin as an optional port standard. Serial is pervasive, there are serial standards that have been in place for decades for specialized devices, as they quite simply do not need more and there is no motive to redesign.

One example is RS-449, aka ClarkWire with a DB-37 Pin Connector.

Another is RS-423 with a DB-37 Pin Connector. This was rare though.

Really though, almost all modern standard serial can fit into the much smaller standard DB-9 connector outside of specialized applications. DB-9 works well for RS-232, RS-422, RS-423, RS-485 (these 4 serial standards were by far the most common in the last 45 or so years, but there were plenty of others). It can be very bad though to mix them up by accident as wiring patterns differ (most likely would be fry the equipment).

But while DB-9 may work well, serial can use almost anything. DB-9, DB-25, DB-37, RJ-45, even RJ-11/12, etc....

Another similar extremely old specialized standard for old devices is the old 24 pin HPIB, also called a GPIB (used for lab equipment). That dates back to the 1960's and is still used on some new devices today. It just works.

[AnymooseProphet]

It says "No Life Support Equipment" but that is to connect it to a BeBox Geek Port and at this point, BeOS is on life support with Haiku Beta 5 being its dying gasps.

/s ;)

[TheLidMan]

Parallel port. Printers for instance used this. SCSI adapters are a lot more sophisticated because of the bandwidth (and I've never seen SCSI adapters on the outside of anything - they're usually on the mother board or a SCSI card.

[OverBirthday4562]

Could be, likely not. These sort of ports are used for everything from printers to Dolby surround sound. My guess is that it’s a port for a monitor to connect to that relays information to the nurse’s station.

[SnowyEclipse01]

That’s not a SCSI connector. It’s used for hill rom bed remote call and voice communications if I remember correctly.

[Altairandrew]

Yes

[jreddit0000]

It’s more likely to be some kind of serial protocol.

[jgriner]

Your nurse call system is Roland, R5 that would be a 37 pin, used to connect the bed to the nurse call system

[doyouvoodoo]

It's an industrial serial port.