Prontor-Compur

PC-socket, greatly magnified
General specifications
Hot pluggable	Yes
Audio signal	None
Video signal	None
Pins	2

A Prontor-Compur connection (also known as a PC connector , PC terminal , or PC socket ) is a standard 3.5 mm (1/8") electrical connector (as defined in ISO 519 ^[1] ) used in photography to synchronize the shutter to the flash . ^[2]

Etymology [ edit ]

" Prontor " has its origins in the Italian word "pronto", meaning ready (and was a leaf shutter made by Alfred Gauthier  [ de ] ). ^[3] " Compur " is derived from the word "compound" (the " Compound  [ de ] " was a long-lived series of leaf shutters made by Friedrich Deckel ).

History [ edit ]

The term is derived from brands of widely marketed photographic leaf shutters manufactured from the early 1950s by two distinct, but now defunct German companies. Gauthier  [ de ] (which made the Prontor-S and Prontor SV models, amongst others) and Deckel (the Synchro-Compur model, successor to the Compound model).

Both companies' brands, Prontor (from 1953) and Compur (from 1951), shared a common 1/8"-inch coaxial connector for shutter?flash synchronization. This convergence of design is not as coincidental as it might first appear, owing to the fact that the Zeiss organisation held a significant shareholding in both of these companies prior to the introduction of the shared connector. ^[4] By the 1950s, Gauthier were manufacturing up to 10,000 Prontor shutters daily.

The Gauthier company's essence lives on as Prontor GmbH  [ de ] , which is a wholly owned subsidiary of VTC Industrieholding GmbH  [ de ] . ^[5] The Deckel company went bankrupt in 1994. ^{[ citation needed ]}

References [ edit ]