Floppy cable with 6 connectors?

[Henri Tapani Heinonen]

Is this really true? See
http://www.provantage.com/buy-7able...rinter-input-monitor-ac-etc-3536-shopping.htm. A
floppy cable with 6 connectors.

Can I plug three drives to it? Can I use all of them simultaneously? What is
the letter for the third floppy drive? It cannot be C, because it is for
hard drives.

The last two connectors should be for A-drives and the two in the middle
should be for B-drives. The connector on the other end is for the
motherboard. What about the "sixth" connector?

Can I plug an old tape drive to it? What model?

 

[David Maynard]

Is this really true? See
http://www.provantage.com/buy-7able...rinter-input-monitor-ac-etc-3536-shopping.htm. A
floppy cable with 6 connectors.

Can I plug three drives to it? Can I use all of them simultaneously? What is
the letter for the third floppy drive? It cannot be C, because it is for
hard drives.

The last two connectors should be for A-drives and the two in the middle
should be for B-drives. The connector on the other end is for the
motherboard. What about the "sixth" connector?

Can I plug an old tape drive to it? What model?

Well, I know it says 6 but, from the picture, it looks like a standard 5
connector 'universal'. One for the motherboard, of course, and then two
floppies that can be either 3.5 or 5.25. They use different connectors so
they simply put both on. I.E. 2 floppies, with a choice of which connector,
is 4 plus the motherboard connector for makes 5.

 

[DaveW]

The Floppy Controller on consumer motherboards can ONLY handle up to two
drives; so that cable will do you no good.

 

[Dee]

The Floppy Controller on consumer motherboards can ONLY handle up to two
drives; so that cable will do you no good.

That is absolutely WRONG. The cable you normally use for floppy drives
can only handle 2 drives, but I know for a fact that if you get drives
with jumpers for drive selection and a straight, untwisted cable, you
can put at least 4 floppy drives in the system. The problems is most
people don't do it, so most people think it can't be done. Well, it can
be done! I have done it. The floppy controller is the same as it was
20 years ago!

And, I do remember seeing the specs several years ago on how to twist
the cable to handle 4 floppy drives.

 

[Dee]

The Floppy Controller on consumer motherboards can ONLY handle up to two
drives; so that cable will do you no good.

Check the following link:

http://www.pc-extras.com/prods/cbfd02.html

It allows you to put 4 floppy drives on your current controller. It's
not the controller that limits the number of drives, it's the cable.
Years ago you jumpered your floppy drives exactly the same as you jumper
SCSI drives. You assigned numbers o, 1, 2, 3. Then IBM came up with
the bright idea of twisting the drive select lines in the cable which
meant you set the jumpers on 2 floppies the same (and I don't remember
right now if they were both '0' or both '1') and the cable decided which
was 'A' and which was 'B' The exact same thing you do on IDE drives if
you use an 80-conductor, twisted conductor, and CS (Cable Select) on the
drives.

 

[David Maynard]

Check the following link:

http://www.pc-extras.com/prods/cbfd02.html

It allows you to put 4 floppy drives on your current controller. It's
not the controller that limits the number of drives, it's the cable.
Years ago you jumpered your floppy drives exactly the same as you jumper
SCSI drives. You assigned numbers o, 1, 2, 3. Then IBM came up with
the bright idea of twisting the drive select lines in the cable which
meant you set the jumpers on 2 floppies the same (and I don't remember
right now if they were both '0' or both '1') and the cable decided which
was 'A' and which was 'B' The exact same thing you do on IDE drives if
you use an 80-conductor, twisted conductor, and CS (Cable Select) on the
drives.

Yes. That was purely a stocking and assembly issue. One cable and one
drive, all the same, rather than having to stock them as 'A' and 'B' or set
it during assembly.

 

[T]

Disregarding the 'you can have four floppies' answer the common usage
for these cables is to have one cable with the two common types of
connectors on it, still assuming the end user will have no more than two
drives.

Card edge connector vs pin n' socket type.

You just ignore the connectors you don't use.


TBerk