Geek Question

[c9]

I have a floppy drive in my desktop PC at home. It uses a standard 34-pin three-connector ribbon cable to operate. It works fine, although it's rarely needed.

As part of a recent purchase, I picked up a very on-sale* rounded floppy drive 34-pin cable. Rounded cables, for those unfamiliar, look like little pipes instead of big wide ribbons, and allow better airflow. It features little bumps on the connectors to ensure correct insertion. But when I insert it, the wiring is actually backwards, so the drive no longer works. How do I know it doesn't work? The light on the drive stays on constantly, which equals a cable that's backwards on one end. The cable cannot be reversed on either end, as the slot restricts which side the bump can slide in.

Has floppy drive cabling technology changed, and I just missed it? I teach this shit, so I (a) doubt it and (b) would be really annoyed.


* foreboding?

Comments

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

Does the cable have three headers? If so, it has a definite direction. One end is the M/B connector, one end is the "A" floppy, and the middle connector is the "B" floppy. In a standard floppy cable, there's a twist between the "A" and "B" connectors and you can't use the "B" connector for the "A" floppy and vice versa. And if the cable is backwards (with the twist closest to the M/B), neither floppy drive will work.

It'd be hard to detect where the twist is in a rounded cable; have you tried reversing it?

If all else fails, you could break out a nail file and sand down the bump on the drive-side and reverse it.

Mind you, all this wisdom comes from the long-term storage parts of my brain which may have been fried by cosmic rays, too much Coca-Cola, and loud music. I haven't used a floppy in years. None of my machines have one. I've built a couple of machines for friends and skipped the floppy drive on those too. The space be be better used by a media card reader or front-facing USB/Firewire/Audio connectors.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

"the space be be better used"

Um, "the space can be better used", I guess.

[c9.livejournal.com]

It's a 2-connector rounded cable. And I'm about 90% certain I tried reversing it. I will try again just to be sure, but since I never use the damn drive it's really just pride.

NCIX was offering that cable for cheap, not IDE cables unfortunately.

[simplisticton.livejournal.com]

It could very well be a bum cable. It's not unheard of... of course, with a two-connector cable, the twist *probably* isn't necessary.

[miket61.livejournal.com]

Has floppy drive cabling technology changed

Does obsolescence count as change? I'm one of three people in an office of 85 whose PC still has a floppy drive.

Meanwhile, we have a shared laptop for our department (currently two people share it, so it's not so bad). It's great, but the punchcard reader is SO unwieldy...

[c9.livejournal.com]

A careful examination tells me that there is a twist in it (yay for rainbow coloured wires!). So it's acting as the end connector, not the (non-existent) middle connector. I didn't get a chance to research any further than that.

[c9.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with the utter pointlessness of owning a floppy drive. Once I get a new case, the floppy (which has been with me for three computers now) will finally get the boot.

[evad-cgy.livejournal.com]

Though this doesn't help you... My dell came with a USB floppy drive
Just had to share, as I find it quite ironic