I have studied this... I thought about trying to make a 'fit everything' cable with some sort of black box
I sell 64 different cables and only two are the same, one other is very close Allen Bradley PLC-5 1784-CP10, Automation Direct D3-DSCBL-2 and Omron C500-CN221-EU are all very close to the same.
The issue with the min din 8 and the CPU's listed is that (other then the pin out configuration) the protocol is also different the Micrologix is RS232, IDEC and Twido are both RS485 and Mitsubishi FX is RS422 so even if they fit and the wires were landed on the correct pin the com's would still not work or you would need a switch to change the protocol signal
That's what I'm trying to do. I'm making a mega breakout box to consolidate all these dozens of cables that I tote around, but so far it looks like I'm only succeeding in irritating people. In my original thread I estimated I had around 40 cables, but since then I've sorted and categorized them and I have much more than that. When I squash all the air out of all the little ziplock bags, I can barely stuff them into a full sized satchel bag. And that's only the "less frequently used" lot that I don't carry in my backpack!
Thanks for the info that everybody has provided. I'm going to let this thread rest, and walk away having conceded and accepted defeat on two counts:
1. No, I can't get away with carrying only one 8 pin mini-DIN connector.
2. It's unreasonable for me to expect to be able to do so.