I ran one extra 4-pair cat5 cable from the RJ-45 punchdown panel in the closet (where the enet hub and pipeline is located) to the place my computer is located. At the wall by my computer, I wired an RJ-45 connector per T568B, all 8 wires.
I got two DB-25 to RJ45 connectors, (which were off the shelf at Frys), one Male, and one Female. These are DB-25 shrouds and connectors, with an RJ-45 connector in the shroud prewired with either male or female pins on the wires. You punch the pins from the RJ-45 into the DB-25 connector frame and snap the shroud over it, so you have a little DB-25 male or female connector with an RJ-45 jack where the wire would normally go.
I wired them to match the Mac modem cable (used all 8 wires). The wiring I used is shown below. I'm following a Mac requirement, but it should work the same for PCs. The constraint is to only use 8 of the 9 standard RS-232 signals. Macs only use 5 anyway. There is probably nothing magic about the colors I used, although I selected to put RxD and GND on one twisted pair (R,G will go to Blue,BluStripe on the cat 5 cable). Obviously, both connectors need to be wired the same.
Signal Name Pin Color ------ --- ----- GND 1 not used TxD 2 Yellow RxD 3 Red RTS 4 Blue CTS 5 Gray DSR 6 Orange GND 7 Green DCD 8 Brown DTR 20 Black
Back at the Mac, I just plug my a standard Mac modem cable from the Mac's serial port into the female DB25, and use a standard patch cable to go from the DB-25 to the wall plug. At the other end, I use a short patch cable from the RJ-45 punchdown to the male DB25, then plug the DB25 into a DB25 to DB9 converter. Essentially, I have configured a 50-foot long serial modem connector.
Shown at left is the Mac Modem cable (top), connected to the DB-25 to RJ45 connector (Red), with the patch cable down to the wall plug. The other red and white lines are part of the "picasso" version of the Mac logo which is on the mousepad that I took these pictures on. It was an accident, OK?
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