Ray Davison wrote:
> As an aside, I finally took a good look at a store bought round cable. 
>   It was a standard 80 wire cable, and was split between every other 
> wire.  So presumably what remains are signal and ground pairs.
> 
> I think the real reason they exist is because they look cool in 
> plastic, illuminated computer cases.

It also seems to me that the electrical performance of a round cable 
is degraded.  A ribbon cable is not only easy and cheap to make it has 
quite predictable characteristics.  In a loosely routed ribbon cable 
each signal path has a known and fixed relationship to every other 
signal path.  An eighty wire cable is a forty wire cable with each 
signal wire separated by a grounded spacer.  This reduces crosstalk.

When we split the cable into pairs and bundle it in shrink tubing we 
not only loose the spacing we randomize the relationship of the 
various signal paths.  Every cable is now different.

Ray




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