On Wednesday 03 December 2003 15:59, Josiah Ritchie wrote:
>Josiah Ritchie scripted ::
>>So I need termination at both ends, The cable I have only fits the
>> tape drive only fits backwards of it's labels. Meaning the end
>> labeled to plug into the card fits the wide connector on the tape
>> drive and the other end fits the thin connector from the
>> AHA-2940/AIC-7871 card. So I confirmed the drive is set to
>> terminate and the card terminates and then the length of cable on
>> the other side of the card also has a terminator. Can I turn off
>> termination on the card somehow or is it safe to chop off the
>> terminator on the end of the cable opposite the drive? I suppose I
>> should just buy another cable, but I'm pinching pennies hard here.
>>
>>I'd prefer to turn off the cards termination, but if I need to cut
>> the cable I'm OK with that.
>
>Cancel that, I need a good knock in the noggin. When I sat down and
> re-examined the cable I realized that the wide connector simply had
> an adapter on it. I should be able to swap jumpers on the tape
> drive to turn off termination there and then flip the cable (minus
> the adapter) and I'll be set.
>
As long as *both* ends 0f the cable are terminated, you should be.  
The drive, if its terms are off, can be anywhere along the cable as 
long as the far end is properly terminated.

OTOH, if the drive is the far end termination, then the cable must not 
go more than 1 or 2 inches max past the drives connection point, else 
the echo's will come back from the untermed end of the cable, leading 
to all sorts of weird data errors.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
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by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.