Test Equipment Anonymous

The interconnects are like the old 50-way SCSI IDCs, but the cable has 22 conductors with spaces in between and to match that spacing the pins/sockets are in a single row with 0.1" pitch instead of two rows.
Unlike the two-row connectors there isn't a latching cover to keep pressure on the top of the conductors and there's no further 180 degree turn through a cable clamp. I think this is part of the problem with the design and probably why I had problems after reversing the connectors end to end. In the new position I had to fold the cable in the opposite way and this flipped the direction of the forces acting on the IDC such that it was encouraging the cable to leave rather than stay. i was thinking about using just one row of two row connectors on a 44 way ribbon cable, with every other conductor unused.

Sounds like a right PITA. One of those things that was a standard design, which for a few years you could buy from RS etc, but was never particularly popular, and now is a rarity. Replacing it with something more mainstream could be done, but with an awful lot of desoldering and messing about, and a good chance of something going wrong. How about an adapter board?