Help!
Jim, Glad to have been of some help . . .
I just went down to Fry's (a chain of electronic supermarkets here in the
SF Bay Area), and bought a 10' length of 50 conductor ribbon cable
($7.70), a 4 pack of IDC connectors ($4.29), 2 50 pin Centronics style
connectors ($4.50 each), 3' SCSI cable (25-50 pin) ($6.99), and an
external terminator ($9.99).
I cut off a few feet of ribbon cable, put a Centronics connector on each
end, put the 4 IDC connectors in the middle (spaced about 6-8" apart to
provide flexibility when moving connectors around – I hate it when you're
trying to pull out ONE connector, and the adjacent ones come free also
:^), and threw it in the case. The only thing I couldn't find was a couple
of metal backpanel holders, so mounting the centronics connectors was a
little tricky. Judicious use of my largest screwdriver as a pry bar
allowed me to wedge the connectors into 2 slots in the back of the PC case
– it seems to work for now.
The SCSI cables I have seen inside a number of Macs use the same 50 pin
flat ribbon cable and should not be any different from other SCSI cables.
The external cables are also interchangable, though I guess you can spend
more money and get specially shielded cables, or twisted pair cabling
which is even more expensive, but I've never had problems using the cheap
SCSI cables, and my SCSI chain is about 6-8' long now.
I've heard of problems about the power supplies in these units, but
fortunately, I haven't had any problem yet. There are a couple of
potential pitfalls there. Some supplies might need a load on the +12V to
operate properly, others use the sense line on the motherboard power
connector and will not turn on until it is driven high (I think :^), etc.
I've only got 2 3.5" Quantum drives in there now, but am planning on
adding a Syquest 88 & Tape Back-up unit later. Here's hoping they don't
cause problems.
Keep On Toastin'
Erik Flom