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>
> With IDE disk drives, each connector on the motherboard can
> communicate with
> two IDE drives. All IDE drives (Integrated Drive Electronics) contain a
> drive controller. In order to use two drives attached to a single
> connector
> with a ribbon bus cable, only one drive controller can be used.
> Each drive
> has jumpers that can be used to determine if it is a master (drive
> controller enabled) or slave (subordinate to the drive with the
> controller
> enabled). So yes, master/slave is a very accurate metaphor.
All perfectly true. But the means by which the master drive controls things
is a matter of supreme indifference to the user who is trying to install the
drive into a PC. All the user needs to know is that there are different
jumper settings depending on whether the drive is
a) to be attached alone to a new drive cable
b) to be attached as a second drive to a cable which already has a drive on
it
c) to be attached to a new cable with another drive subsequently attached to
the same cable
The words "Primary" and "Secondary" would quite sufficient for the purpose
of describing the circumstances under which the different jumper settings
are used.
What we have here is the use of a terminology (master/slave) which is
appropriate to describe the operation and design of the drive system, but
not strictly necessary for documenting its installation in a PC.
This is not primarily a matter of avoiding potentially offensive terms
(though if unnecessary offense can be avoided, so much the better), but
rather of critically examining the terms used in the course of designing a
product and seeing whether they are also the best terms for describing how
to use it. Sometimes they are not.
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