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Castle EuroIDE interface card - without disc (top)
Castle EuroIDE interface card - without disc (back)
Castle EuroIDE interface card - without disc (bottom
The Castle EuroIDE interface card is designed to support a 2.5" Laptop disc on the card and has an internal 39 pin connector to support a second internal IDE disc (not mounted on the card).
The original A300s and A400s have an on-board ST506 interface which was limited and became obsolete. SCSI discs (as fitted in the A540) remained relatively expensive. So IDE podules became a cheap way to add a hard disc. Laptop 2.5" discs were designed to use a 5v power supply delivered on the ribbon connector and did not require external power.
The EuroIDE interface could be used in any Archimedes, but apparently can be sensitive to radio frequency interference from the backplane and prefers a 4 layer backplane.