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From: emmo@moncam.co.uk (Dave Emmerson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: need help connecting external disk
Summary: Sounds a bit iffy..
Keywords: cheap-o clone, no expansion slots
Message-ID: <305@marvin.moncam.co.uk>
Date: 14 Dec 89 18:54:58 GMT
References: <139@b8.INGR.COM>
Organization: Monotype ADG, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 25

In article <139@b8.INGR.COM>, paulj@b8.INGR.COM (Joey Paul x4129 ) writes:
> [deleted]
> problem.  My question is what to do with the controller?  It will plug
> into the expansion slot and works fine, but who wants a board sticking
> out the side of their computer?  If I mount the controller in the expansion
> box it would also work, but I need some type of bus extender cable.
> Does such an animal exist?  If so where can I find one.  If not, any ideas?

Try it if you really must, but be warned, if it works at all you'll be
driving awfully close to the edge. The extender would introduce signal
skew, crosstalk, capacitive, resistive and inductive degradation, volts
drops on the supply lines, the lot. If his clock speed is slow enough, and
the cable is short enough (around 100-150mm top) the driver chips might
live out a reasonable lifetime. Plus, in the States, you'd have the FCC
to contend with unless you can screen the cable properly, and that'll make
it rather rigid. If you can mount the board horizontally inside the PC
on 50mm of cable you might just succeed. The only extenders I've ever seen
are *huge* PCB's which also tend to suffer from mild doses of the above, we
use them for testing prototypes with extra power cables bolted on.
Best bet by far would be to rehouse it in a bigger case, I've seen some
quite cheap ones advertised.

Sorry,

Dave E.