[disposablezero]

Ah the clever XT/AT hardware:

- hard-drive on expansion card

- null modem cable (LapLink had two cables: one parallel , and one serial with a pair of DB25 and DB9 on each end)

- parasitic-powered serial devices

- Northgate keyboards with a ctrl-alt-del button

- game port Y cable (two analog joysticks on one standard game port)

- Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro joystick for mostly-compatible digital support (supported by Mechwarrior under DOS)

- Thrustmaster F-16 FLCS/TQS/RCS

[al2o3cr]

"hard-drive on expansion card"

Amusing that this is a thing again, for adding M.2 PCIe SSDs to desktop machines that don't have the connector.

[dfox]

As for "HDD on expansion card", traditional IDE is nothing more than ISA bus on cable with smaller number of address lines and pins that were assumed to be not needed omitted. Pre-DMA IDE controller consists of not much more than address decoder.

[kenz0r]

True, but from my recollection, most hardcards were running MFM or RLL disk controllers, rather than IDE.

[watmough]

Have to put in a quick mention that the Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro is probably the worst piece of hardware ever made. Or at least my copy was. Never worked right, and one of the few pieces of hardware I've ever taken out to the dumpster at my old apartment(so this is like 12-14 years ago!) and summarily destroyed by stamping it into pieces, Office Space-style.

[emmelaich]

Not only XT/AT (of course).

For my Amiga I had the Tiny Tiger Parallel port to SCSI adapter. Cost me a bomb.

http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=...