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Why is one ATA wire punched out?

Submitted by Hawaii Cruiser on July 23, 2007 - 8:52am. PowerPC Macs

Can someone tell me, why do the 80pin ATA cables in the Mac towers have one of the wires punched out? And are there any ramifications when replacing the cable with a complete cable which doesn't have the wire punched out? thanks

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Hawaii Cruiser's picture

These holes

Submitted by Hawaii Cruiser on July 23, 2007 - 8:55am.

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Bolle's picture

that´s something asked myse

Submitted by Bolle on July 23, 2007 - 9:08am.

that´s something asked myself, too... Sticking out tongue

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Hawaii Cruiser's picture

what's in a name?

Submitted by Hawaii Cruiser on July 23, 2007 - 10:11am.

I guess I should have said 40pin/80wire cable, or are they technically 80pin?

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eeun's picture

The hole creates a difference

Submitted by eeun on July 23, 2007 - 9:57pm.

The hole creates a difference between the two connectors, allowing Cable Select settings to be used on both drives, rather than setting master and slave. Put a different way, the cable assigns the master and slave rather than the drive jumpers.

Or, they're speed holes that make your drives go faster. Eye-wink

» It's all pants.
3 stories posted
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Hawaii Cruiser's picture

Cable Select?

Submitted by Hawaii Cruiser on July 23, 2007 - 10:31pm.

That's interesting. I've never heard of or seen anyone using those cables for cable select. You can also use them for master/slave, but would it be better to use them in a cable select setup? The cable to the optical drives also has the hole, so the optical drives can go cable select too then. Hmm, my B&W manual has long since disappeared. It would be interesting to see if it's mentioned in there, but I don't remember anything like that. If you're correct, then it seems like Apple put them in there, but didn't tell any of the consumers about it.

So, does that mean you can take any 80wire ATA cable and punch out that one wire and turn the cable into a cable select cable?

For anyone wanting to catch the humor in your link, do a search (command-f) for "speed holes." Guess I'm wearing my happy face today. It's my birthday. I could use a new car. honk, honk

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