JIM HOLSONBACK wrote in a message to MATT MC_CARTHY:

JH> Hi, Matt.  In this morning's mail, I heard you telling Wayne C.
JH> about - 

MM> The old SB - Creative CD is wired G-L-G-R (looking at the back of the
MM> CD drive), and many times one of the "G"rounds was left out of the
MM> cable since they are connected together on both the drive and the sound
MM> card.

JH> I'll confess my ignorance about that one.  AFAIK, most of those old
JH> proprietary CDROM drive interfaces like Creative, Mitsumi and
JH> Panasonic were only 1x or 2x, and another fellow at the shop where
JH> I volunteer always worked with those.

I've encountered relatively little of that stuff myself,  in spite of
hearing a lot about it over the years.  The first cdrom drive I got was a
4x,  and it was IDE.  (or "ATA"... :-)   I do have a couple of
old sound cards that support them,  and even a couple of interface cards, 
just those connectors without the sound hardware,  and have not had the
need to put any of it to any use.

MM> Two different type of 'white' plugs were used, one fit a set of round
MM> pins, the other fit a set of mini-square pins.  You might need a
MM> magnifyer to tell the difference.

JH> FWIW, and to maybe be a bit of help to Wayne, - -
JH> Checking a SB AWE32 card with 3 different connectors for the little
JH> white plugs, Even with mag glass, I can't see any diff between the
JH> shape of the pins.

I've never noticed it either.

JH> I see that "CD IN" has pins 1 and 3 connected, while
"AUX1" and 
JH> "AUX2" have pins 2 and 3 connected.  The
"ground" pins on "CD IN" 
JH> and "AUX1" read high resistance to card ground, but
"AUX2" has the 
JH> "ground pins" soldered to the widespread copper of card ground.  So 
JH> your below-suggested pin-to pin measurements or direct observation 
JH> are the key to making sure which of the 4 pins are the "ground 
JH> pins".

MM> The new CDs, and sound cards as well, with the wide flat black plug
MM> (sometimes with a locking clip) are wired R-GG-L with both G's 
MM> connected together on the sound card and in the drive.

JH> Yes, for IDE/ATAPI type, I checked at least 4 different drives here
JH> - - they generally even have the pinouts labeled on the back of the
JH> drive, with the one exception I found being a kinda sick Samsung
JH> 48X, which had no labeling for its pinouts.

Hmm.

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