US 2003/0151891 A1Published application

Universal cableless drive adapter for a portable computer data storage device

OwnerDieter Paulinventor

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Abstract

A universal cableless drive adapter by which a removable carrier can be electrically coupled to a portable computer data storage (e.g. a disk or tape drive) so that the data storage device can communicate with an SCSI bus in a small computer system network while avoiding the common use of ribbon cable and the effects caused by the corresponding stub length on the bus. The universal cableless adapter is attached to the removable drive and includes a fixed I/O connector and a DC power plug, the position of which is adjustable relative to the position of the power connector on the data storage device. Accordingly, the removable carrier can be efficiently coupled to a variety of different computer data storage devices, regardless of the manufacturer of the data storage device, the position of the power connector thereof and the distance between the data storage device and its removable carrier.

Claims5

Dependent claims

For a removable carrier and a portable computer data storage device having an input power connector and being transported within said removable carrier, a drive adapter by which the portable computer data storage device and the removable carrier are electrically coupled to one another to enable the portable computer data storage device to communicate with a computer system, said drive adapter avoiding the use of a ribbon cable electrical coupler and comprising an I/O connector mounted on the removable carrier to be plugged directly into the portable computer data storage device so that said data storage device can receive and transmit control and data signals, and a power plug to be mated to the input power connector of the portable computer data storage device to supply power thereto, the position of said power plug being adjustable relative to the position of the input power connector of said data storage device regardless of the size of said data storage device and the distance between said data storage device and the removable carrier therefor.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.