No! On the old IBM 386 machines you saw a three device cable for the old 40pin/40conductor ide cables. Then along came the 486 two device standard seeing the overall increase in hard drive capacities. That was one of the original reasons for seeing a hard drive chain for the increased drive space with multiple drives.
No they didnt, it was only 2 devices on each IDE channel for 386 and it was made between IBM/Compaq and W/D
ATA-1 (IDE),
[Obsolete] 8.3MBytes/sec, 8 or 16 bit data width, 40 pin data ribbon cable/connector. ((With a maximum of 2 devices on the bus)). Using PIO Modes 0, 1 or 2. Performed no bus error correction. The ATA-1 specification was released in 1994, and was withdrawn in 1999.
ATA-1 - The original specification that Compaq included in the Deskpro
386. ((It instituted the use of a master/slave configuration)). ATA-1 was
based on a subset of the standard ISA 96-pin connector that uses
either 40 or 44 pin connectors and cables. In the 44-pin version, the
extra four pins are used to supply power to a drive that doesn't have
a separate power connector. Additionally, ATA-1 provides signal timing
for direct memory access (DMA) and programmed input/output (PIO)
functions. DMA means that the drive sends information directly to
memory, while PIO means that the computer's central processing unit
(CPU) manages the information transfer. ATA-1 is more commonly known
as IDE.
A single IDE interface can support ((two devices)). Most motherboards come
with dual IDE interfaces (primary and secondary) for up to four IDE
devices. Because the controller is integrated with the drive, there is
no overall controller to decide which device is currently
communicating with the computer. This is not a problem as long as each
device is on a separate interface, but adding support for a second
drive on the same cable took some ingenuity. To allow for two drives
on the same cable, IDE uses a special configuration called master and
slave. This configuration allows one drive's controller to tell the
other drive when it can transfer data to or from the computer. What
happens is the slave drive makes a request to the master drive, which
checks to see if it is currently communicating with the computer. If
the master drive is idle, it tells the slave drive to go ahead. If the
master drive is communicating with the computer, it tells the slave
drive to wait and then informs it when it can go ahead.
ATA-1 - The original specification that Compaq included in the Deskpro 386. It instituted the use of a ((master/slave configuration)). ATA-1 was based on a subset of the standard ISA 96-pin connector that uses either 40 or 44 pin connectors and cables. In the 44-pin version, the extra four pins are used to supply power to a drive that doesn't have a separate power connector
The original IDE/ATA standard defines the following features and transfer modes:
- Two Hard Disks: The specification calls for a single channel in a PC, shared by(( two devices that are configured as Master and Slave)).