02 Jul 15 11:05, you wrote to me:

 ml>> PATA (old style) and SATA (new style) are both IDE... IDE

 EV> I knew the P meant Parallel and the S meant Serial.
 EV> I didn't know both xATA HDD's were IDE.  Thanks!

welcome :)

 EV> I've always thought a Parallel connection was the way to go. I'm
 EV> thinking about back in the early days Printers were RS-232 Serial, but
 EV> later most all Printers used a Centronix Parallel connector. Until USB
 EV> came along.

yup... parallel requires "latch queues" so that each bit is
placed into a latch and held while the others are loaded into their
latches... then they are all released at once to travel in parallel...
loading the "latch queue" takes time and adds some overhead...
"latch queue" isn't what it was really called but it is the
closest thing i can think of right now...

think of parallel as the big toll booth line across the highway... think of
the highway leading up to the toll booth as a single lane and the highway
leaving the toll booth as a multilane highway with as many lanes as there
are booths... as each vehicle approaches, they are directed to the first
empty booth on the right so they fill the booths from right to left... they
are held in the booth until all booths are full and paid... then they are
all released at the same time to travel the next part of the highway in the
lane they are currently loaded in... there is no lane changing... when the
first group leave the booths, the next ones are queued in the same fashion
from right to left to pay and hold until all are loaded and ready... that's
how serial is converted to parallel...

this might help... tiny links below the matching one...

http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/sequential/seq_5.html

http://tinyurl.com/pcs8kkh


http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/chpt-12/serial-in-parallel-out-shift-register/

http://tinyurl.com/obm8k66


http://electronicsbyexamples.blogspot.com/2013/03/serial-and-parallel-io-shift-registers.html

http://tinyurl.com/opomeos


the above are my first three results when i ask uncle google for info on
"electronics latch serial parallel"...

https://www.google.com/search?q=electronics+latch+serial+parallel

i always found digital circuits easier to understand than analogue ones and
that lead to my picking up and understanding programming...


 EV> SATA Hard Drives, I guess, must be faster than PATA Hard Drives?
 EV> Even though the signal flow is Serial, which I always thought was
 EV> slower because of Parallel Printers becoming more popular to buyers.

serial had some problems... both did, actually, but different problems...
serial has gotten much faster and is still easier to handle...

 EV> -snip-
 EV>> P.S. I was looking around Waldo's Place BBS a few days ago and
 EV>> learned that the W in wkitty meant 'White'.

 ml>> actually, the name of the bbs has the first name in it...
 ml>> granted, the avatar is a white cat on a black background but
 ml>> the bbs is named for the moniker ;)

 ml>> )\/(ark

 EV> So Your initials are WML?

no... i stated that poorly... the name of the bbs has the first name of the
moniker... my real name has nothing to do with my online moniker...

 ml>> ... NAK NAK, "Who's There?" #{at}#^#$%#(#{at}^ NO CARRIER

 EV> BELL (CTRL-G) would work better than a NAK wouldn't it?
 EV> I'm thinking NAK is the NUL $00 ASCII Character.

i dunno... it is one of those thousands in the list... i see "NAK
NAK" as a play on words of "KONCK KNOCK" for kknock knock
jokes ;)

 EV> Was I close enuf?

sure! :)

)\/(ark

... There is no limit to how bad things can get.
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