In article ,
raden writes:
There is a length limit, although I forget what it is.

Original ATA spec is 46cm. I believe it got shorter with the
higher speed modes but I don't have those specs.

[Parallel] ATA is very rapidly giving way to SATA now. I saw
some figures for two months ago with SATA drive sales almost up
to ATA ones, and they will have overtaken by now unless there
was a dramatic change in direction of the straight line on
the graph. ATA drive sales look like they'll drop to almost
zero in less than a year. Was browsing around a computer store
in the US two weeks ago, and SATA drives were actually cheaper
than equivalent ATA ones (not sure that's true here quite yet).

--
Andrew Gabriel