One thing to keep in mind is that connectors are often parametric: You got some end bits, and a middle section you repeat N times. This means a lot of your dimensions are going to be "Y = AX + B", where X is just the pin spacing. If you know they're from the same family, you can extrapolate the dimensions without too much trouble.

Of course there's still a huge risk with DB-19 being a semi-custom format. Sure, it's almost certainly derived from the standard, but are you willing to bet the cash equivalent of a car that they didn't slightly tweak it for one reason or another?

It was a standard D-sub connector at one point in time, DA19P is going to be the first part of the real part number. Only issue is that no one makes this one anymore as the D-sub is pretty much abandoned by the consumer electronics industry. Serial ports, single density 9 pin, and VGA, double density 15 pin, being the only survivors and even those have been almost entirely removed. Defense contractors still use lots of D-subs as it's a simple and cheap way to pass a bunch of signals. The major connector manufacturers stopped making 19 pins because no one was asking for it. Defense contractors aren't going to keep that model alive with their low volume orders, it's easier to just use a 15 or 25 pin D-sub.

Since there are so many compatible drawings out there of D-subs, it's easy to find one that shows the breakdown of why the measurements are what they are. From there, you can easily backtrack and get the exact dimensions of a DA19P.

From what I gathered, they Photoshopped a CAD drawing and changed numbers around (and not far presumably) — I’m not sure why that is too surprising given that the manufacturer is building it off the measurements and not literally the scale of the actual drawing?

(And given that drawings used to be hand drawn with pencil and paper, you have way more ton of precision control in a non-linear tool like Photoshop that gives you precise measurements than some rulers and those types of tools.)

if he had molds made, the manufacturer actually sent the dimensions to a 3rd party mold maker. That company put them into some sort of CAD software to build a mold (which is basically a negative). Once that was completed, the mold was brought back to make the product

I don't get why you would do this in a world where prototyping is so extremely cheap. Even if you have no hardware, you can easily get e.g. a resin 3D printed model made for very little money, just as a sanity check. See if it mechanically fits, alignment looks right, etc.

Wait until you see how computer programs are made.

'it compiles, ship it!'

except we don't even compile programs anymore... (in the traditional sense, anyway; I try to look the other way when build engineering does dark magic with webpacks and esbuilds)

At the point where JScrambler is implementing a VM in JavaScript to run the obfuscated code, I think it actually qualifies as being compiled. Which is unholy, but that's the world we live in.

Assuming there was inaccuracy in the author's approach, some poor low-level guy probably noticed the flaws and took it upon himself to correct it.

Yeah. Especially after reading this sentence:

> Early on, it became clear they’d need more specific directions than simply “make it like a DB-9 but with more pins.”

what do you think is likely to go wrong if you do it this way?

Any measurement off by some small amount, and the connector won't insert, or be too tight or too loose.

It is the equivalent of code that compiles and runs successfully at the first attempt. It is nice, and with experience easier to achieve. But it is still part lucky.

It probably helps that it's a large-ish connector (by modern standards) and tolerances aren't that tight.

We don't know and that is the problem. A lot of manufacturing is about process and we have rigid processes because it reduces risk. There are no checks in this, no qualification/pilot run, no one checking the design who understands the requirements. The only solace I can find is that the factory might have done all of this, they just want to cover their asses in case something goes wrong.