Parallel ATA (PATA), originally AT Attachment, also known as Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE), is a standard interface designed for IBM PC-compatible computers. It was first developed by Western Digital and Compaq in 1986 for compatible hard drives and CD or DVD drives. The connection is used for storage devices such as hard disk drives, floppy disk drives, optical disc drives, and tape drives in computers.
Two ATA motherboard sockets above, with an ATA connector below
Image: IDE Connectors in PC Chips M925LR Pentium 4
Example of a 1992 80386 PC motherboard with nothing built in other than memory, keyboard, processor, cache, realtime clock, and slots. Such basic motherboards could have been outfitted with either the ST-506 or ATA interface, but usually not both. A single 2-drive ATA interface and a floppy interface was added to this system via the 16-bit ISA card.
80 pin parallel ATA interface on a 1.8" hard disk
Western Digital Corporation is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products, including data storage devices, data center systems and cloud storage services.
Headquarters in the Santa Teresa district of San Jose, California in 2021
WD33C93 single-chip SCSI interface
Western Digital Tidbit 60 (WDAH260) - 62.3 MB (2.5 inch drive mounted in 3.5 inch adapter bracket)
Western Digital Caviar 80 MB (model number WDAC280-32), from a series of HDDs for desktop PCs; it is a 3.5-inch HDD mounted onto a 5.25-inch adapter bracket.
