Ribbon cables used to be used for floppy drive, hard drive, and CD \/ DVD connections.<\/p>\n
Ribbon cables were eventually phased out, as floppies are no longer used, and IDE was replaced with SATA.<\/p>\n
Ribbon cables usually terminate in a pin or edge connector. \u00a0Ribbon cables are marked on one edge.<\/p>\n
Pin and edge connectors have the individual conductors numbered, starting with pin (or path) #1<\/p>\n
Ribbon cables must be connected from pin 1 on the host device (motherboard) to pin 1 on the remote device (peripheral). \u00a0In order to identify “pin 1”, ribbon cables are marked along one edge, usually with a black or red stripe.<\/p>\n
On the motherboard or peripheral, look for a large dot (white writing on the board), or “PIN 1” or “1” near pin 1. \u00a0Install the ribbon cable with the marked edge connecting to pin 1 on both the motherboard and peripheral.<\/p>\n
Later, ribbon cables had “keyed” connectors that could only be connected in one direction, thus forcing the alignment of pin 1 to pin 1 on the ribbon cable, and pin 1 on the peripheral.<\/p>\n
In many situations, one end was keyed, while the other was not. \u00a0Knowing how to read a circuit board to find pin 1 would save time, effort, and possible damage to components.<\/p>\n
Toward the end of their lifecycle, all connectors were keyed.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, the replacement standards, including SATA, USB, and “FireWire” (IEEE 1384) connectors were all keyed.<\/p>\n
Initially, SCSI (Small Computer System Interface — “Server” hard drive interface) used a 50-pin ribbon cable, compared to the 40 pin IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics — “standard” PC hard drive) interface. \u00a0SCSI cables had up to 15 connectors on one cable, and followed the same “Pin 1” alignment rules. \u00a0Later variants of SCSI used keyed connectors.<\/p>\n
The modern version of SCSI, called “SAS” (Serial-Attached SCSI), uses SATA style connectors, encapsulating the SCSI protocol within a serial interface. \u00a0Like SATA, SAS interfaces are keyed.<\/p>\n
Finding “Pin 1” is a lost art, but if you work on older hardware, occasionally, having this skill can be a benefit.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Lost Art of the Ribbon Cable Ribbon cables used to be used for floppy drive, hard drive, and CD \/ DVD connections. Ribbon cables were eventually phased out, as floppies are no longer used, and IDE was replaced with SATA. Early Ribbon Cables Ribbon cables usually terminate in a pin or edge connector. \u00a0Ribbon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-quick-facts","post_format-post-format-aside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":631,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justinparrtech.com\/JustinParr-Tech\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}