So a guy goes into his local computer store...

[NumbaJuan]

says to the guy behind the counter, I need one of those ata 100 ribbon cables with the primary connection in front of the slave connection!....WHAT THE..?? anyways, hows a come ide cables are layed out the way they are (in the vernacular of layman please)

 

[John]

There are single and dual device IDE cables. Typically the black or grey end goes the the device, and the blue or other bright color goes to the motherboard ide connection.

 

[Alphazero]

Doesn't matter any more where you place the drives. Just be sure to set the jumpers.

 

[NumbaJuan]

Originally posted by: Alphazero
Doesn't matter any more where you place the drives. Just be sure to set the jumpers.

so on a dual device cable i can have a slave device at the end of the cable (wich is labled primary) with the proper jumper settings?

 

[buleyb]

Yep, but I can't answer the question as to why they say it has to be the other way...

 

[NumbaJuan]

someone once told me that if you didn't learn something new everyday that the day wasn't worth living..today i have LIVED! thanks guys

 

[Sahakiel]

With Ultra DMA onward, position does matter.
I believe the 80-pin conductor is actually made so that only slaves will be in the middle. Something about one of the pins being empty for that connector.
What master/slave does is arbitrate who gets to use the cable. The slave drive will always check to see if the master drive is currently using the cable. If not, then the slave will begin transmitting. With the old pre-UDMA EIDE spec, I think arbitration was more along the lines of ethernet, but I'm pretty sure that nowadays, master/slave actually means something. Plus, the master drive provides termination for the cable, which is why it's really not a good idea to stick a lone drive in the middle of the cable.

 

[tenoc]

IIRC, which drive goes on which connector only matters if the drives are set to cable select.